Wacky Weather

With Gustov and Hanna dancing around in the tropics your chances of finding an open charter boat on Labor Day are pretty good. The chances of me posting any fishing reports are a bit low. The weather right now is pretty nice and Gus looks like he won't be much of a problem for the Keys. Hanna is predicted to miss us to the North a good ways but the computer models five days out are goofy, so who knows.

As for the fishing, its pretty good. Dolphin are decent sized and close in to the reef. Yellowtailing is a little frustrating because the small fish are every where. You have to use a lot of chum to get the big ones up. I try to get people to burn a block of chum fast and reload before putting a line in the water. Rolled oats is really a big help this time of the year. It really gets the fish up close to the boat making it easier to pick out the larger fish.

Sandwich size Mangrove snapper are everywhere with quite a few over two pounds in the bay and Hawk Channel. There are some fatties at the bridge now that the spawn is well over.

I haven't been fishing the flats lately but have heard it is worth a shot if you are so inclined. The lobster season is going gang busters right now. Fay got them moving so they are a lot easier to find.

The photo above was taken last year. I haven't tracked down the photographer so I can't give proper credit. Hopefully, I can fix that soon. By the way, I was underneath the larger water/land spout trying to get my own photo. As ominous as it looks, the only casualties were two umbrellas and a trash can down at Pips.

With things looking slow for a while I am going to try to rearrange the blog to make it easier for people to find stuff. The boat ramp link is going to take a while because the photos are a pain to load. I may end up using slide shows to make things easier.

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

After Fay and Other Stuff

Tropical Storm Fay came through a few days ago so no fishing reports. The yellowtail bite on the reef should be hot as a firecracker for the next few days though. Fay didn't do much damage. We never lost power and the cable only blinked off for a few minutes. After taking care of the boats it was great napping weather.

Tourist are starting to trickle in now. With Fay stalled over Daytona it may take a while before the North Florida regulars can get away for a Keys fishing trip. You South Florida folks may want to wade out to your car and come on down for some fishing.

As mentioned in the earlier post the fish cleaning table is coming along nicely. We will be looking for a few volunteers to help test the table pretty soon. What we are looking for is a few crafty kind of folks that can build base stands or cabinets for the top. Then send us some nice pictures and hopefully good reviews of the table. We can still make a few tweaks to the design if need be based on the feedback. The table will probably be free for the volunteers though we may have to charge for shipping.

We will also be looking for distributors in various locations around the world. Anyone wanting to sell the tops keep checking back and I will give out the web address for the marketing director when we are ready to go.

In the photo above is is a view of the bucket holder. Let us know what you think.

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

Fish Cleaning Table

I apologize for the lack of posts recently. I have have been fishing some but mainly trying to work on the fish cleaning table and a few other projects. A couple of days ago I finally got one of the hopefully last prototypes. This one is made out of the real deal HDPE (High Density Polyethylene), the same thing Starboard(TM) is made of. The molding process proved to be a bit of a challenge using HDPE. The end result of the struggle looks like it was worth the effort.

Let me know what you think.




Here is a photo with me at the table for scale.


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