Monday, July 27, 2015

Danielle's Dolphin on One of My Darts


My Nephew Dwayne and his daughter Danielle with grandson Colton are down for mini-season.  They stopped by on the way to Sugarloaf to get a few of my darts.  There ya go.  They don't have a scale but the fish looks like it could make forty pounds, it has to be an honest thirty anyway.  In any case, it is Danielle's largest and a nice start to a Keys vacation.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas

Friday, July 24, 2015

Grunts are Panfish


I don't keep many grunts basically because I am lazy.  Grunts are just a common panfish and with most panfish they tend to taste better cooked whole, like panfish.  Grunts are kinda like the bream of the sea down here.  Off the Atlantic Coast, Croakers and Spots are more popular panfish because they are easy to catch most of the time.

If you are a big time sportsfisherman you might look down grunts and since most folks are lazy like me, you probably don't remember that fish have bones and tend to taste like "fish".  Since most folks now a days are "privileged", which is wealthy and lazy, they tend to shoot for high dollar fish and ignore the pan sized critters that many of us grew up on.  Lots of folks actually look down on panfishermen.  I call call Grunts and other panfish, "Brown Baggers" because I would prefer that customers take their panfish and clean them somewhere other than near my boat.  It takes about 3 times as long to properly clean a panfish and a decade or two to get rid of the scales that tend to go everywhere.  If you are willing to put in the time and effort to clean panfish you are likely to find that they taste pretty damn good.

If you decide to fillet the panfish, you will get a potato chip size fillet that doesn't have much flavor other than whatever breading you used to fry it.  Some people like these tiny fish chips, but filleting panfish tends to less than optimal for others.  Once the fish gets to around 14 inches long depending on the species, it isn't a "panfish" anymore.  Over 14 inches long roughly you can get close to 50% of the weight of the fish in fillet and leave mainly bones on the carcass.  Below 14 inches or so you start leaving more meat than you get off with a fillet.

Growing up I was used to eating panfish and picking the meat off the bone without getting too many bones stuck in my throat very often.  These meals were a rather lengthy get together, similar to picking blue crabs, and almost without fail the fish were breaded and fried.  Once in a great while we would cook a few on the grill which back then was more often just a fire, then we would sit around picking the fish off the bone and typically drinking a beer or two.  I don't recall feeling impoverished or under privileged at the time.  Of course, I wasn't a gourmet panfish cook because I typically cut the heads off before cooking and gave them to the cats.  Real gourmets probably don't have cats.

The problem with cooking them on a grill is that the skin, often a good part of the meal, sticks to the grill.  I found out that if you dry the fish well then coat them with olive oil prior to seasoning, you can not only keep the skin intact you can even burn gourmet looking grill marks that add to the appearance and can make some people think you know what you are doing.  Then you get a nice crisp outside with a moist tender interior that is almost like fish cooked in its own natural stock.  Other than salt and pepper, you don't need anything fancy to mask the taste of the fish because the fish actually tastes good, a lot like fish.

If you happen to be down on vacation and don't have access to a grill or don't care to cook because you are after all on vacation, there are a few restaurants that will cook your catch on the bone.  In nearly all cases you will need to have the fish cleaned ahead of time and you should check with the restaurant to make sure they are willing to do it.  In season, when the places are usual packed, they are less likely to cook your catch whole.  The Seven Mile Grill and Lazy Days South are likely to have no problem especially if you have an extra fish or two for the cooks to sample.  If you check the Lazy Days link you will notice they have the filleted and de-boned clause for cook your catch, so definitely check ahead before dropping of a bag of grunts.  I am sure there are other places, but I have actually seen fried whole fish served at both of these.

Whether panfish served as panfish is your cup of tea or not it is always nice to know your options.
Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas

Thursday, July 23, 2015

The Cheap Yellowtail Rods

Today was the first time I got to play with the cheap Yellowtail rods.  We managed to find a decent current and came close to limiting out on 'tails.  In fact we had very few throw backs with a good number of 15 inch fish.  Not stellar by any means but fairly respectable.

The cheap rods did their jobs with no hitches which isn't bad for dirt cheap gear.  The clients were a bit impressed with them and noticed that they didn't need any fancy flourocarbon leader since the cheap reels are spooled with fresh Berkley clear 15 pound test line.  No fuss, no muss, just catch fish.

The boat in the background by the way was part of the two boat guide package today.  That boat seemed to focus more on the grunts and porgies which they like but they did get a few 'tails and one of the 'tails got one of their not so cheap rods.  They sat the rod on the deck for just a moment longer than it should have.

This trip I also was able to catch a net full of Ballyhoo for a change.  It has been a while since I got a cast net wet so that is a good thing.  We only converted one of the Ballyhoo into a Cero Mackerel though.  I am not sure why the Ceros are so finicky this year, but they are.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.


 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas

Yellowtail Snapper


Yep, that is a Yellowtail Snapper.  We had a family fun day, some fishing, some snorkeling on the Lady Catherine yesterday.  Slow bite but some nice sized Triggerfish and Yellowtails. The crew didn't have much fishing experience so we didn't slay the fish, but they did have fun and learned how to maybe slay them next time out.

The current is very unpredictable, but if you happen to catch a decent current, the fish are biting.  However, the bite may not last very long so take advantage of it while it lasts.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas

Monday, July 20, 2015

Offshore July 19th


Like I have been mentioning there are some decent dolphin offshore but you do have to spend some time hunting for them.  This bull is about 20 pounds and a wedding present with the bride to be kicking butt.

We found this one about 17 miles from the beach on about the only trollable weed line we saw.  There is weed everywhere and thanks to the 10 knot winds out of the south in the morning it was a pretty confused mess of scattered weeds with a few huge patches.  Inside of 16 miles there were Blue Runners everywhere keeping the birds busy so we found this one without their help.

We ended up with a baker's dozen and in the photo are a couple of the big blue runners that were making pests of themselves.  We didn't see a tuna all day.

Since the Blue Runners volunteered, the schoolies were caught mainly on Blue Runner chunks.;

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas

Friday, July 17, 2015

How is July Going?

I just finished four days with my regular Hobbs party.  We caught fish but never had a hot bite.  Patches, Rockpiles, Reef and Wreck fishing but never had what I would call a real bite lasting more than maybe 20 minutes.  We mainly put mangroves and grunts in the box.  One of the party was George "Grunt" Grant and he happens to like grunts.  The Mangroves ranged from just keepers to a couple of pounds.  We kept maybe six grouper, mainly Rock Hind with one Black Grouper that made the cut, several Rainbow Runners, a few Porgies, Trigger, Hogfish and a large Barracuda along with a good number of Mangrove and Yellowtail Snapper.

The Patches and Rock Piles were really disappointing.  Typically we would have had plenty of Porgies, Lane Snapper and Hogfish on the patches.  For whatever reason that bite was way off though there were plenty of undersized Hogfish.

Since we had a west wind most of the time I guess I could blame it on that, but with the exception of one day the winds were light and variable.  In any case it was slow by our standards, they only had one cooler full of fish and not three or four this trip.

What was really missing was the Cero Mackerel bite.  We saw quite a few Cero singles but they never schooled up in the chum.  Ceros have been a regular on other trips with Hobbs along with a stray King Mackerel once and a while.  Had the ballyhoo been thicker that would have kicked things up a notch.  I did see ballyhoo a few times but they never were thick or got close enough to put a net over them.  We did see plenty of speedos, scads, but didn't catch may thanks to my getting barbed up with a Sabiki rig.  There was also not much of a jack bite which tends to provide a lot of action though most aren't considered quality table fare.  So if you are coming down in the next week or so expect to catch fish, but you will likely not get worn out catching them.  

The night bite is a different story from what I hear.  There are plenty of Mangroves on the reef and they tend to get more stupid at night.  Dolphin are still waay offshore with several of the guys I talked to not putting lines in the water until they are 20 miles off the beach.  Some are doing pretty good and a few are only getting a handful of gaffers for their effort.

On the stellar side is the weather and the visibility.  While calm and clear water make the fishing tougher it makes the diving great.  Next month you will have the option of Lobstering if the fishing bite is slow.

 Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas