First Real Front of the Year

We had an afternoon half day yesterday on the Lady Catherine and the winds had. just shifted to the Northeast.  With the shift the ocean side gets less sporty which is great for the Lady Catherine which is docked on the ocean side.

The trip was just a fun fishing trip with two young anglers doing the work and the women folk doing the chillin' and photography.  We caught dinner but the Spanish Mackerel and Ladyfish were bait for some larger toothy critters.  We boated a Blackfin and Sharpnose for on the water pictures and had a few larger sharks spin up and break leaders, but the big nurse shark which is a lot easier for a novice to handle was the hit of the 10 to 12 year old angler set.

Even in Hawk Channel we could have done pretty good on the Spanish if that was the plan and the mangroves and yellow tails were respectable for the area we fished to stay out of the wind.  The Ladyfish were a welcome surprise because they get aerobatic and make great bait.

I didn't take any pictures as I was more busy posing fish and replacing rigs with all the toothy critters around.  A few boats made it offshore and seemed to do well plus there were some cobia caught on the further than Lady Catherine can run Gulf wrecks.  So it looks like the Bay Side winter fishing complex is open for business.

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 Closed to Commercial Harvest and Big Mangrove Snapper

When the fishing is great that is when things get closed down, weird huh?  At least this time it is a commercial closer meaning that commercial yellowtail snapper fishermen have had a banner year.  With the Hogfish closer it was "general" which should have meant the state would close the recreational harvest.  This is where the "system" really breaks down.  Quotas don't really let you know anything about stocks because fish have good years and bad years.  Quotas tend to keep people out of the business just like any regulation will and tend to divide people, just like most regulations will.  For most kinds of fish gear restrictions are better at doing the job.  Since by far, most fish caught commercially are by nets, trawls, seines and gill, limiting their use makes it hard to catch more.  Size and bags limits do fine regulating hook/line and diving catches and recreational fishermen are currently getting hit harder than they should because of not all that great management.  "Other" grouper are regulated just because they can not because there is a need, red snapper are no where near as "endangered" as thought and Jewfish aka Goliath Grouper are close to being over populated in lots of ares.  Well, enough of that rant.

Yesterday we had a nice little half day on the Lady Catherine.  I thought I had cleaned my lens but instead just smeared it so this was about the only picture worth posting.  That mang was just over 5 pounds which is nice in anyone's book plus we had a 4 pounder, a 4 pound yellowtail along with  a fair number in the 3 pound range. We had a live bait issue where some small pinfish were supposed to be delivered that didn't make it in time or there would have been more.  There was also a tax collector in the slick that took several larger fish.  We thought is was a shark but it could have been some big king mackerel.  Whatever ti was it wouldn't take heavier gear with live yellowtails as bait.

Some of the crew got green but were troopers so we fished almost the full time.  So you could say things were slow but we did all right.  Seas were a little higher than predicted due to

 one of those scattered showers but not really that bad.   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

Dallas Darts Score In Venice Lousianna

Ray set me some pictures of their trip to Venice along with a message that they took some Dallas Darts.  I am sure the darts where just part of their lure collection, but I imagine those blackfin tuna found the darts pretty tasty.  In any case it is fun to find some of my students doing good.

Perhaps they will stop by and add some comments on what worked and what didn't.

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