Cole Versus Snapper

Cole's parental units had a memorable Memorial Day Weekend repairing their boat trailer on the way to Marathon.  After taking care of the trailer, they made some time for Cole to catch them some dinner.

Cole, star of the Dolphin Catchin' with Cole offshore video, posed for a quick still with a respectable, Cole size, Lane Snapper.  The Memorial Day trailer fun limited the fishing trip, but Cole and the 'rents ended up with about a half dozen tasty Lanes and a few Toros, aka, big eye snapper for dinner.  There would have been more but a rather large Barracuda wanted his share of the snapper action.  Cole came close to grouper dinner a few times but the bottom was a little tough for the light tackle.

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

Boat Trailer and Other Stuff

I am supposed to be fishing with my little buddy Cole right now but the boat trailer blew a couple of tires.  So I am hangin' in the Seven Mile Grill blogging while the tires are rounded up in Islamarada for the trailer.  So we may not get out today.

While hangin' one of the customers at the Grill wandered up meet me.  Seems he is a follower of the blog.  It is kinda nice to be recognized.  It kinda makes me feel bad though about not organizing the parts of the blog that need the most organization.  Since that sounds like work, instead I will give a little fishing report and tip on tarpon.

Sam Nelson, a real tarpon guide, told me that the worm hatch has been going on at Bahia Honda.  The worm hatch can make fishing a little difficult if you don't have the right bait.  Crabs is that right bait.

The medium sized blue crabs are just the ticket.   Medium is what the bait stores call tarpon size crabs and are about 3 to 4 inches from point to point.  How you fish them is not all that complicated.  With just a hook, about a 5/0 for that size crab, you can just free line the crab in the current.  Using a float and weight can be a bit more productive under some circumstances so be flexible.  The current hot depth is about two feet below the float, but that is subject to change.

Right now the major bite has been at the Bahia Honda bridge.  The Seven Mile and Long Key bridges should be about ready to fire up if tarpon is your thing.

As I mentioned before, the bite offshore has been inconsistent.  I did hear good reports on tuna and dolphin around the humps this week, but closer in the fish have been a little hard to find.  Still haven't heard much on the Mangrove Snapper spawn.  There were not very many spawn fish on the spots I fished this week but fair numbers of keepers if you could get them to bite.  We didn't get too serious about yellow tailing this week but I did see plenty of good size fish nearly every place we put a chum bag in the water.

Well, once the trailer gets fixed, me and Cole will round up some better information, until then here is a redux of Cole dolphin fishing :)



Marathon 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

Skeeter and Bud's fishing Evidence

Skeeter and Bud head back north this evening after a few days of fishing.  I can't remember how many days we fished for some reason, but we did fish two or three days together.  This is evidence that they did fish and did catch fish.  The physical evidence of their fishing was disposed on premises with the help of Miss Pat and an unnamed accessory after the fact.  Some alcohol was involved in the disposal.

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

Stuck on Grouper

Skeeter and crew are down from the north country again this year. That means Miss Pat will be eating pretty well for the next few days. Luckily, they like fishing in the Kiddie pool. The Kiddie pool is the Hawk Channel humps and bumps pretty close to the house. There are so many humps and bumps that you can generally find one with some hungry fish like these red grouper. That it nice to know when the offshore current dies. We tried some trolling and wrecks in the morning, but the bite was off. So we finished the day dinner fishing in the Kiddie pool. Along with the red grouper dinner was Lane snapper appetizers. I still haven't honed in on the monster lanes since the water warmed up. Yesterday was also slow, with pretty torrential rains shortening the day. Just yellow tail and Mangrove snapper though we marked tons of fish and had plenty of Cero Mackerel cutoffs.

 Some of the offshore boats are bringing in nice catches of Dolphin, but the bite doesn't seem to be as consistent as it normally is for the Gulf Stream being so close in to the reef. On a new moon I would thought everyone would be slaying dolphin by now. We found some peanuts and missed a shot at some larger fish, but there was not much other than huge weed lines with little bait out there today. Good thing I got the Kiddie pool.

Since Skeeter is down for a while, we will terrorize some of the usual suspects and hit the Kiddie pool a few more times for dinner. 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

New Record?

Not a good one though. this is the longest I have good without a blog post in some time. First, blogger which hosts the blog has made some changes. Unfortunately, not all were for the good. Seems like paragraphs are a hit or miss kinda things. The second reason is the fishing has sucked. The wind and rains seem to come when I have trips scheduled and go when I have nothing booked. I did manage to bore the heck out of a couple guys with slow full moon fishing, but that was about it. The only reason I am posting today is for the cook at the Seven Mile Grill.

Fonz, the cook, works his butt off most of the time but likes to fish. He does a good job of fishing, but the catching part has kinda baffled him. Since he likes grouper, I showed him how to catch grouper. We caught two for dinner, that took about 30 minutes of fishing time and came back. So now he can take off after work and actually bring home dinner. Now that most of my trips have been canceled. The bite seems to be picking up. Hopefully, this time I will be right. April was just about a total wind out and the first week of May had lots of wind and rain for the wrong time of the year. That really messed the tarpon fishing up for some time. Though, in the middle of the mess, B.J. Meyer managed to release fifty sailfish in a half day. That trip was a practice trip since the weather ran off most of the paying customers. Today, the winds were light and the water looked about normal again instead of milky white. The monster full moon with the rain and the wind was like a triple whammy. The tides are still running stronger than normal, but as long as wind stays under 25 knots and the rains don't pour for a while, the conditions should be fine. Dolphin offshore is still not fantastic. There are good numbers of keeper schoolies, but fish over twenty are more of a surprise than an expectation. The Mother's day Dolphin tourney was won by a 30 pound fish, which is pretty light. Before that tourney I manage two black fin on the full moon and there were a number of skunks I have heard of. That is not good for business. So today was a good sign that that is changing and I heard some other good reports. Stay tuned, I have a bunch of trips schedule that may actually happen if the weather holds. So I some have more reason to be posting here 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. Tight lines, Capt. Dallas