Wahoo at the Seven Mile Bridge

I took Pete, the new owner of the Seven Mile Grill, fishing the other day to show him basic windy day fishing stuff.  We fished the Seven Mile Bridge and caught a fair amount of Mangrove Snapper and yellow jacks.  While fishing I told him some of the stories about big smoker king mackerel that will move close to the brige on ocassion, big porgies, cobia, permit, pompano and all the other things that I have caught at the bridge but are not real target fish since they tend to move around a lot.

Pete caught on pretty well and took one of his buddies to the same are a couple of days ago.  They caught plent for dinner but also hook a wahoo up twice.  I know, they must have been drinking right? 

Well, when the Gulf Stream gets really close, like it was last week, it is not all that unusual for offshore fish to come up in the sand or shallow water.  I have seen sailfish and even tiny marlin in the Hawk Channel along with a 200 plus pound YellowFin Tuna on the patches under these kind of conditions.  It is rare, but does happen.  That adds a lot of credibility to their story along with the fact they are sticking to it while catching a lot of grief for having such an outrageous tale. 

The winds btw still suck, but the fishing is great.  The few days that a boat can get offshore, the dolphin and tuna are biting and you don't have to go much past 600 feet to catch them.  The tarpon are doing their thing mainly on the first half of the outgoing tide and the yellow tail guys are bringing in  more flags than normal.  Since Grouper season opens in a few days, FINALLY!, there will be a lot better reports then.

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

Finally, Really Nice Weather.

The past two trips have been a pleasure, just like old times.  They were patch reef and bridge short half days with the new owner of the 7 Mile Grill. The trips were just quick afternoons when he could get away from business.  YellowTail Snapper, Margrove Snapper, Cero Mackerel and Yellow Jacks were the main menu items for the guys at the grill, but we did miss a few pretty interesting fish that may need another visit when Grouper Season opens up at the first of the month.

I have heard a few reports from offshore that seem to be getting better.  Not very many slammer dolphin yet to report, but there are more heavy swingers/light gaffers being brought to the dock.  Sam Nelson and Jeff Knapp are both back into the Tarpon thing.  We watch Sam release a nice fish Monday afternoon on the first half of the outgoing tide.  That is typical for this time of the year as most fish tend to chew a little better at the first of the outgoing at the bridge.

There are tons of Mangroves at the bridge, but unfortunately there are tons of small mangroves at the bridge.  That means that the right bait and a little patience is required to catch the larger fish.  Small Pinfish and Pilchards, if you can find them, are the best baits.  The live shrimp are too tasty for the little guys, but if you want a mess of pan sized fish quick, they will do the trick.

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

Is it Spring Yet?

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted much on fishing lately.  That is mainly due to weather.  I had a trip about 10 days ago.  The weather report was not great, but sounded doable.  Had the weather report been right, it would have been a fun day.  Instead, we experienced 30 knots winds out of the due south from 10 O'clock to 2 O'clock.  That sucked for me, but for the crew that trusted the weather report for their vaction, it really sucked.  That was probably the worst 7 day forecast I have ever seen.

I should have been a weather forecaster.  Now you can be right only 70% of the time and still get paid.

I have been holding off on posts so that I can pick times when it would be great to come down to enjoy the Florida Keys Fishing Experience instead of the Florida Keys Weather Experience.  However this post is just to let folks know I am still kickin'.

MM	DD	TIME (EDT)		WDIR	WSPD kts	GST kts	WVHT ft	DPD sec	APD sec	MWD	PRES in	PTDY in	ATMP °F	WTMP °F	DEWP °F	SAL psu	VIS nmi	TIDE ft
04	06	7:00 am		N	17	19	-	-	-	-	29.99	+0.03	65.8	-	61.9	-	-	1.37
04	06	6:00 am		N	19	21	-	-	-	-	29.97	+0.00	67.3	-	59.9	-	-	1.32
04	06	5:00 am		NNW	20	22	-	-	-	-	29.97	+0.00	66.9	-	59.4	-	-	1.05
04	06	4:00 am		NNW	23	25	-	-	-	-	29.96	-0.02	67.5	-	60.1	-	-	0.72
04	06	3:00 am		NNW	25	26	-	-	-	-	29.97	-0.01	67.3	-	61.9	-	-	0.42
04	06	2:00 am		NNW	21	22	-	-	-	-	29.97	+0.01	68.4	-	62.6	-	-	0.16
04	06	1:00 am		NNW	20	22	-	-	-	-	29.98	+0.03	68.7	-	63.5	-	-	-0.03
04	06	12:00 am		NNW	22	24	-	-	-	-	29.98	+0.05	69.4	-	64.2	-	-	0.02
04	05	11:00 pm		NNW	26	27	-	-	-	-	29.96	+0.07	69.6	-	65.5	-	-	0.25
04	05	10:00 pm		NNW	17	20	-	-	-	-	29.96	+0.08	70.0	-	69.6	-	-	0.60
04	05	9:00 pm		NW	14	15	-	-	-	-	29.93	+0.06	71.2	-	70.9	-	-	1.03
04	05	8:00 pm		WNW	9	10	-	-	-	-	29.89	+0.09	70.9	-	69.4	-	-	1.39
04	05	7:00 pm		W	9	10	-	-	-	-	29.87	+0.00	68.5	-	68.2	-	-	1.60
04	05	6:00 pm		NW	13	14	-	-	-	-	29.86	-0.02	65.8	-	65.5	-	-	1.67
04	05	5:00 pm		NNE	32	34	-	-	-	-	29.81	-0.07	69.8	-	69.6	-	-	1.60
04	05	4:00 pm		ENE	2	2	-	-	-	-	29.87	-0.06	74.5	-	71.6	-	-	1.26
04	05	3:00 pm		SW	5	5	-	-	-	-	29.89	-0.08	74.8	-	72.9	-	-	0.98
04	05	2:00 pm		S	14	16	-	-	-	-	29.88	-0.13	73.9	-	69.4	-	-	0.62
04	05	1:00 pm		SSE	18	19	-	-	-	-	29.94	-0.05	72.1	-	71.2	-	-	0.37
04	05	12:00 pm		SE	5	6	-	-	-	-	29.97	-0.01	70.9	-	69.6	-	-	0.19

 That is the kind of wind patterns we are having.  So I am not going to be providing much weather advice until there is more of one color or the other.  I will joint any petitions to incarcerate Puxitawney Phil that are being pasted around. 

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