Nice Fish

Just a quick phone post.  Hope the photo comes out.

For February, we boated a nice dolphin yesterday.  Lost a bigger one at the boat.  It was sporty but fishable after a rain delayed start.  Tons of bait for a change.

Yep, Fish are still biting

While I am screwing around with domestic nonsense and plumbing repair, David has been fishing is the light and variable conditions offshore.  David Heberholz is the lead captain on the Lady Catherine and also does a little fishing consulting on private boats.

A 54" bull dolphin is a solid 30 pound fish and called a slammer down here.  The 53" cow dolphin should be between 25 and 30 pounds.

Other boats have been getting good numbers of gaffer fish and the occasionally Wahoo.  Not bad for August.

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

Bay Side and Shark Week

 This time of year most folks come down to chase Dolphin or hit the reef and wrecks for snapper and grouper.  The bay side can be a lot of fun though and still produce a pretty good mess of Mangrove Snapper with the occasion Cero Mackerel and a few other species. 

Just about any place you set up for fishing on the bay side is likely to be visited by a pretty large number of sharks.  Today I fished on the Little Lady Catherine and we had a tiger shark playing around the chum slick plus a few sharp nose.  Sometimes its Lemons, Black Tips, Bulls, Hammerheads or just Nurse sharks, but if seeing sharks is pretty rare where you fish, you might find yourself enjoying the show.

The Mangroves we caught were a little smaller on average because so many have moved out to the reef for spawn, but we still had a decent catch with a few in the 16 inch range.  The bigger ones tend to prefer fresh Pinfish or ballyhoo chunks and you will probably need to break out the 12 pound fluorocarbon leader, but they will bite.  Bigger chunks also help cut down on the number of undersized fish, but there are so many some will be unavoidable.

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

Fun Offshore

While everyone else is fishing for grouper it seems, we had an offshore trip yesterday.  Over all it was slow but the fish were worth it.  In spite of losing two dolphin that would have gone over 20 pounds, we still ended up with four nice dolphin to twenty, all gaffers, a pair of Skipjack tuna, one nice Blackfin tuna and a tripletail.  One of the dolphin was caught on a fly rod while trying to get tripletail.

We saw a good number of fish following lures that didn't eat and it was just rough enough to make it a challenge.  We had a bit of Bermuda Triangle phone and camera day so about 30 minutes of video was lost along with one of the 20+ pound dolphin being fought on light spinning tackle.  Even the first set of photos at the dock didn't take but the customers did get a few which they said they will email me :)  We'll see, but it is pretty rare for them to remember.

The electronics issues were likely due to salt spray.  While it wasn't really rough the wind and seas were sporty enough to keep everyone fairly wet during the day.  The little Lady Catherine is a dry boat most of the time but with the front coming through the southwest winds proved there is no such thing a dry center console.  The highlight of the trip was a white 55 gallon drum that had nothing but large Tripletail holding on it that we found on the way in.  We managed to hook one of the Tripletails before a school of gaffer dolphin mugged us.  Damn the bad luck :)

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

The rare full moon on Christmas day fishing adventure

We had a nice family fun half day today on the Lady Catherine which can be a bit of a challenge in gusty winds.  Family fun is basically fishing with a bit, snorkeling a bit and a bit of sightseeing.  We couldn't talk the crew into keeping any fish because of travel issues so we put them on sharks, mainly Bonnet Heads with a possible reef/sharp nose.  Kind of hard for me to tell without breaking out the book.  Anyhoo, about a dozen sharks were enough so we switch to a mixed bag spot out of the wind that produces mainly action with enough good eating fish to keep everyone happy.  Today, the eating part of happy falls on Captain David with Mutton, Mangrove and Yellowtail Snapper and me with a  bag of Porgy fillets.

The entire crew really enjoyed the non-stop action with lots of photogenic fish then a brief dip Molasses Key.  That action as usual was at the last of the tide current through the change.  Bridge or any place close to the bridge on the full moon you get about 1 or 2 hours of pretty good fishing around the slack tide.  Unfortunately, you get to hear more of my jokes than normal before and after the magic hour because more often than not the rest of the time sucks, except for sharks of course.

I was really surprised we didn't get any Spanish Mackerel today since they have been just about every where, but I guess they are liking the Bay Side since the ocean side is pretty churned up.  So it was a slower than normal day but we had the right crew for what we could find and they have Christmas day catching pictures with a tan.

Tomorrow is the first of a three day set with Chicago Joe.  He almost didn't make it down this year due to back problems so I guess I will have to take it easier on him that normal.;  Looks like a Bay day with chance of bridge.

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

Lady Catherine in Party Boat Mode

The crew had a lot of fun but it is a lot of work.  I normally sit out the party boat mode since I just have a six pack, but Captain David called me up to be a second mate.  We had nine healthy sized anglers, plenty of beer, a bottle of Jack and a bottle of Crown that got broke open about 9 O'clock.

Other than having to convince the crew that fish do have musical preferences, they mainly like old school music, the trip went well.  Unfortunately, we were cursed with the damn nears, as in damn near legal grouper and hogfish.  Releasing 23.75 inch Black Grouper broke a few hearts.

The Hogfish and Porgie bite was a bit off but we managed about 8 "high dollar" fish with the party boat staple grunts making up the bulk of the box.  Several sharks made the biggest impact on the crew and a Bonnet Head made in the box for appetizers.

Since most of the crew were active duty Army guys from south Florida, grits and grunts wasn't foreign vitals.  Old school grits and grunts call for whole scaled fish which is a bit time consuming but we didn't mind cleaning their catch in the proper manner instead of gringo style.

For anyone wondering, a half day party boat style trip on the Lady Catherine is $700 which works out to $70 a head with 10 passengers.  Since we don't do the ticket thing, customers are responsible for assembling crews and it is a good idea to make reservations in advance.   As always tips are appreciated, but if we suck we suck some that is your way of letting us know.  We didn't suck this trip and a few even mentioned that they had more fun on this trip than most other trips they have been on.

 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

More weird Dolphin Stuff

Kinda out of the blue I got called to fill in for Captain David today.  As you can see we found gaffer dolphin.

A few as a matter of fact.  Not a single dolphin strike trolling.  We found a school of heavy lifters/light gaffers and had a few live Ballyhoo in the well to get the bigger fish turned on.   So I think it might be worth while to spend a half hour or so getting sexy baits in the live well before heading out, at least until the full moon is a bit more behind us.

Since the crew was from out of town and flying, we released a number of the smaller fish and just kept about 10 fish.  That was about 25 to 30 pounds of fillets worth, and took them back to the reef for a dip before heading to the barn.

Not a bad day, but considering we found a pallet and lots on huge weed patches with other floaters but no fish, it isn't a sure thing out there by any means.  Probably worth the effort though if you want some pretty fish and lots of fillets.  We found the fish in about 725 foot of water which is about 18 nautical miles off the beach.

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

Lady Catherine - Hump Trip

Not bad.  The bite was pretty stead all day but never really crazy.  We ended up with about 10 Blackfin Tuna, three Skipjack Tuna and three dolphin.  The crew had a great time.  It is fairly rare to get light a variable winds in March.  The schoolie dolphin were finicky or we would have had lots more fish.

I have several trips coming up on the Lady Catherine and most should be trolling so hopefully we will get a shot at some of the really big dolphin that tend to cruise through this time of year.


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

Couple of Fun Trips on the Lady Catherine

This Cobia was an inch short but Matt didn't mind much.

It was a slow day though but the crew had plenty of fillets for dinner.


With the winds more up than down we have been hitting the rock piles.

Typical mixed bag fishing for the rock piles.



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