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I tried to take a video of the dolphin we caught. They were not big. The big slammers are about 25 miles off the beach. Since my crew included three older guys (I'm one) we opted to stay close and play with the smaller fish. Skeeter (Dave), Pops, (Mike) and LeRoy (Tom) didn't want to leep many fish so we only kept a half dozen schoolies in the 23 to 26 inch range, plus one tasty blackfin tuna which I did get a decent picture of.
While Blackfin may not get to the size of Yellowfin, they are mighty tasty. So I am not embarrassed keeping Blackfin this size. The fillets weighed about a pound and a half, which is plenty of dinner for me. We found the schooies in about 350 foot which is maybe 8 miles from the dock.
Blogger still has not turned the video thing back on so I may play with Youtube and see if I can post it some how.
I think this will work. Now I did not edit this and the cameraman (me) sucks, but let's see how it looks.
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.
Mike shows that they are still around. Today was a fishing 101 to show Dave's Crew from Pennsylvania where to find some bigger fish. While offshore is the main event this time of year, the deep edge of the reef and artificial reefs have plenty of big critters. After playing with some Jacks, we hit the sixty foot line of the reef and put a keeper red grouper in the box, the king mackerel and tussled with a few things that didn't what to be photographed.
Dave's crew was not into eating fish so I have a nice dinner of grouper and fat lane snapper coming off the grill pretty soon.
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.
NOAA has a neat hurricane track history page for all you storm fans. This is the time of the year all the hurricane predictions come out. This year is supposed to be above normal, whatever that is. I am not all that concerned with normal, I am more concerned with where, when and how strong. They can't predict that.
Some of the forecasters do give you similar years. This year is supposed to be similar to 1950, 1955, 1996, 1999 and 2008. The national hurricane center has a neat map of past hurricane tracks you can pick your years to see how they were. Of the years listed as being similar, only 2008 has a storm that pasted our way.
The 2008 storm was tropical storm Fay. Fay I think is the only tropical storm to have its name retired. She made landfall in Florida 4 times and dumped more rain than most hurricanes. So if this year is that kind of above normal year I am all for it. I firmly believe that the more you prepare for a hurricane season, the less chance you have of needing to. So I have pruned the trees and most of the normal stuff already. That way I can fish longer before a storm if one does point this way.
Anyway, the predictions make it look pretty good for the spur of the moment guys this year. Guys that want to take off for a long weekend have a good shot of getting some good fishing in. The winds will be getting more predictable for the small boat guys (me) to run offshore or hit the reef. The dolphin run for bigger fish has started a little later than normal so maybe it will last a little longer. Last year the snapper bite on the reef was pretty awesome, it should be about the same this year. Most everything is looking good for a make up for last season's oil scare.
After a weather delay, I should be fishing tomorrow. It is a fishing 101 for fun fish so maybe I can get another shot at a video. I blew it with the dolphin on the fly rod
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.
I was all ready for a fun day of fishing for the freezer but the weather is a little iffy today. Since I have enjoyed all the wild and crazy offshore rides I want, unless of course the pay is right, we are sitting it out today with semi plans for Tuesday or Thursday. I have plenty of freezer bags stocked up just in case.
The only reason I am posting anything today is because Blogger, the company that I use for my blog, has had a few issues. Comments the past few days have been lost in cyber space and access has been limited. Blogger has also gotten rid of the video Icon for the blog, which makes it even more challenging to post videos should I do happen to figure how to do that.
So I will play online and may sneak out this afternoon for some snapper if the front moves through. Some good news (to me anyway) is I figured out how to create a virtual RS232 com port to download the numbers from the old GPS and up load into the new GPS. I only have a couple hundred of numbers locally, but a few of those are pretty sweet and somewhat unknown. Now I just have to remember to make a new hard copy before something else happens.
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.
Not them, that's sage rubbed pork butt cooked to perfection for 4 hours on my newly repaired gas grill. They're here refers to the big dolphin AKA Mahi Mahi aka what's for dinner next week. The big fish were a little slow showing up this year thanks to the La Nina weather pattern. Anyway that's my story and I am sticking to it. Just talked to the captain of the Snap Shot out of Duck Key. Forty something pound fish yesterday. The other guys that have been out offshore instead of tarpon fishing are bringing in more high teens with a few slammers. If the weather holds, you should be able to fill your freezer the next few weeks without playing with too many schoolies. About mid June, the schoolies should become a pest, so the next coupla weeks should be prime time. I am planning a meat trip for my little freezer Sunday on the Flatlines.
So next weeks food for thought photo should be big chucks of fresh Dolphin wrapped with bacon, grilled to perfection served on a bed of baby spinach, with grilled corn on the cob and rosemary roast potatoes. Maybe I will get fancy and stuff the kabobs with surimi stuffing and asparagus. Tough life with so many decisions to make.
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.
The number of grouper I have been getting without being able to keep any has been a major bummer. So I tried to change tactics so I wouldn't catch so many, so maybe more should be around when the Grouper season opened. Tomorrow I will find out if that worked.
I have been fishing but not posting much. The catch has been so so. My crews have had fun and caught fish for dinner. Unfortunately, we have to let go a few of these:
And had to settle for these:
The porgie with Devon was a by-catch while playing with the sharks and the dolphin with Bob was invited home after searching for dolphin on the fly rod. If my crews don't what to kill a bunch of fish, I don't. Not so good for the blog since my pictures on the water don't come out too great, but as long as they have a good time, it's fine with me. Speaking of bad on the water photography, I thought I was videoing Bob's dolphin on the fly battle, but didn't punch record. Great shots I thought. When I got the video going, I managed to get a few jumps, but now the blog doesn't want to upload the video. Oh, well. Ya shoulda been there. Bob got all the good out of the fish. It took almost 30 minutes for an estimated eight pound schoolie.
Up to today, Tarpon have been the main story. They are thick and stupid this year. Now there will be more big bottom fish showing at the docks with Grouper back open. Seems most of the guides have avoided the deeper mutton/grouper spots to avoid killing grouper needlessly. So now the 90 to 150 foot wrecks and ledges will be visited more often.
While the tourista season is winding down following Easter, the serious fishing season is just getting going. Offshore is looking a bit odd so far. The dolphin are out there, but the big brutes are a bit thin for this time of the year. There were a few larger fish brought in last week, but nothing like normal. That should mean that the bigger run should start a little later which normally means better days to fish for them. I have been through a few May/June bites that were awesome, so that may be the deal this year. Tuna at the hump are getting a bit bigger, so that should get crazy soon. Of course we have the annual snapper spawn coming in May through July/August. The water is already fairly warm so we may have one of the long spawns. I have caught monster 'tails and 'Grovers on the long spawns, fish over 24". If that is the case this year, plan on a quick weekend trip to fill the freezer.
I have to add this short video of Bob with his dolphin on the fly rod.
Anyway, I will try to post a quick Grouper report tomorrow.
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.
