Almost

With customers in town and the fish biting it is a bit frustrating to be sitting and waiting on "ideal" weather.  There are plenty of fishing opportunities available but I get customers that want a little more specialized fishing instruction experience.  With smaller boats that means the ocean side is closed to some of the more interesting adventures.  So it may be Thursday or Friday before I can provide an on the water report.

The season so far looks good.  Today the winds are manageable in the 15 knot range which shouldn't close the ocean side but my client has a few weeks and opted for the wait.  Hawk Channel is very fishy and fishable for the grouper/snapper guys and the bay side Spanish Mackerel bite is about as hot as it gets.  Since Grouper closes again the first of January down here due to fish stocks that may be under pressure somewhere else, the last two weeks of December will be dedicated to them and the Spanish more likely to be targeted after Grouper closes.  I am working on a few new recipes for the Spanish after experiencing Chum Salmon Jerky.  In fact I have a new to me Brinkman monster grill that I am planning to modify for drying/curing Spanish fillets for the Jerky instead on the standard smoked fish dip.

Sexy sport fish like the Sails and Tarpon are doing a very good job of entertaining folks right now.  How long that will last is anyone's guess, but the number of "resident" tarpon appears to have more than doubled over the last few years.  Along with that, Cobia, one of my favorites have been a lot more reliable than say 5 years ago, in the bay.   That means that there can be some spots in the bay that I haven't used in a few years due to algae issues following Wilma that should be hot as a firecracker again. 

So sorry for the low number of posts but that should change pretty soon from the looks of things

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

Season is in the Air

I have been getting a few calls about blog neglect.  I did take a much longer break than normal this year since I have been slow and trying to get some body work done with the VA.  I am still getting around and fishing when someone and the weather cooperates, but not having trips between September and November is not that unusual for me.  The guys with the road frontage and the big ad budgets ahve been doing fair for the off season.  Working at Ponchos I see a few going out now and again plus last month I did a wicked weather lobster guide trip.  Since the winds stirred up the bottom and killed the visibility I turned out to be the lousy weather guy to show the very nice young couple a few sheltered dive spots that actually had a shot at holding bugs.  My diver managed to run a few "huge" bugs off, at least huge by his standards, so it was more of a sight seeing trip than fill the cooler trip.  That's why I didn't write it up, though I should have taken a few photos of his lovely bride and posted anyway. 

Most of the guides in walking distance are doing near shore snapper trips and doing quite well with above average sized mangroves and some very respectable yellow tails.  Even at the docks the large mangroves are thick with my diver jonesing because he couldn't shoot a few because they were near the docks.  Large meaning they are mixed but I have seen a few that are in the five to seven pound range more than happy to finish off some of my breakfast sandwich crumbs at the dock.

For whatever reason, there seems to be about fifty times more resident tarpon patrolling the creek this year than I can remember.  I tend to leave them alone but the kids camping at Knights Key have been having fun.  The lobster and stone crab fishermen are bitching as usual about low prices and big catches after having to run too far while paying too much for fuel this year instead of bitching about high prices but small catches after having to run too far after paying too much for fuel.  So the lobster complaino index is good for the shell fish.

Surprisingly, they lobster guys are not finding as many octopi in their traps this year.  Having Greeks running the Seven Mile Grill I was kind of hoping for some serious Greek Octopus main courses.  I my have to dig around and find some jugs to make octopus traps if that hasn't be regulated so far. 

With the cold front passing through I guess there must be  colder fronts passing through up North inspiring the recent calls.  Early winter tends to be pretty good for my business so knock on wood I may see a few of my regulars that didn't make it down last year. 

I will try to get out on the water here after this blow for a Mangrove trip which should get me in good with the Greeks for a while.  Plus Fonz, the former line cook at the Seven Mile seems to be ready for some catching instead of fishing.

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 Boat Time Share - Finangler

 A few years back I had a number of regular customers that had become addicted to fishing in the Florida Keys.  These were customers that would spend two to four weeks per year on extended vacation.  A few mentioned they were getting a little turned off by issues with boats.  They would schedule to have a rental boat for so many days, but something would happen to the boat adding complications to their stay which is not the reason they were here to begin with.  They were in the Keys to fish and avoid complications.

After telling them what BOAT stands for, Broke Or About To aka Break Out Another Thousand, I mention that the first time share property I know of in the world was the Hawk's Nest here in Marathon.  Time shares for real estate or fractional ownership for planes, trains, boats and automobiles, is a way to have the use of something without paying full fare. 

The problems with fractional ownerships are similar to any business, stuff breaks, insurance has to be paid, registrations (dang taxes) have to be dealt with, clean-up, maintenance, storage etc. etc etc.  To offset those cost and make sure that the boat is actually functional when one of the owners wanted to use it, I recommended that the boat be part of a business, like charter or commercial fishing, so it would be used and maintained regularly.

Without going into much detail, I selected a Panga Style hull in the 24 to 27 foot range without a great deal of bells and whistles to brake for a comfortable, fishable and affordable vessel.  The reason was that the vessel would be affordable and fishable more than the comfortable. 

In the Marathon area the fishing opportunities range from back country, flats, bridge, bay, reef, channel patches near shore wrecks, Gulf wrecks and offshore plus Bahama/Cuba runs.  That is a lot of fishing within 100 nautical miles of the dock that can be done in a 24 to 27 foot Panga style boat. 

Panga Style is nothing but a flatish stern dead rise with a high bow dead rise.  The beam of a classic panga is very small relative to its length, but panga "style" is about an 8 foot beam for a 25 foot length, 7' -7" with a 25"-6" LOA was the more exact dimensions of the two I recommended, the Angler Panga - low cost and the Andros Panga - sexy custom.  At the time a 26' Angler Panga demo boat was about $35K and the Andros Panga about $60K.  They both would have a cruising speed of around 30 knots with a 200 HP outboard and get around 3.8 MPG.  Unlike some boats, the panga would also stay on a plane at 2000 RPM making about 10 knots in sporty seas without beating your brains out and scaring your crew to death while getting about 3.8 MPG. 

The Panga I recommended was to be powered by a Yamaha four stroke engine.  Not because I an a particular fan of Yamaha over anyone else, but because you can't throw a stick in Marathon without hitting a Yamaha.  Parts, mechanics and replacements are readily available so there is no lengthy down time should the pooh pooh you know is going to occur, occur.  The motor plan also included either re-powering the boat or trading the boat in on a newer model every two years.  That way you get roughly the maximum trade-in on the boat or motor and someone else gets the potential headache. 

The plan fell by the wayside with a couple of the potential investors buying larger boats with cabins, refrigerators that never were used,  toilets that were used a few times then use prohibited or strongly discouraged, large fuel tanks for the large motors that required home improvement loans to fill and general so much liability that no one really wanted to use the boats other than the out right owners. 

 I am bringing all this up again because one of my newer customers is a tax attorney that likes to spend a month or two a year in the Keys well after tax time.  I  told him that I would look around for boat options so if he likes he could revive Finangler in some form, so here is another boat brand I would recommend.

Old Pro 2004 is a custom 24 foot 5 inch Proline hull based open fisherman built in Chiefland, Florida by Coarsy Fiberglass.  The hull drafts just a few inches and has a little bit wider beam than Panga style, but the performance and fuel economy is very close to the same.  Coarsy doesn't have a website, but you can Google "Old Pro 2400" and read a review or two.  They build the Old Pro's as they would work boats, substantial hull, transom, stingers and deck, but do extremely clean finish work and gelcoat.  They also, from what I hear, would not mind having a boat or two in the area to help advertise their business. 

I am not going to revise the Finagler prospectus/ Business Plan right now but the basic information is all there in the highlighted link.  The plan still is not to get filthy rich, but to have a legitimate reason to write off vacation expenses and enjoy fishing the Florida Keys with less drama, if you are into multi-week fishing vacations.  There is always the potential to expand into something larger if you are so inclined, but thar be headaches.  Whichever way, there are quite a few people that read my blog that may want to hook up with the right boat.

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

Pretty Day Anyway

Elijah of mutton snapper fame was back down for the summer and his dad called me for another guide trip.  After reading of me complaining about the weather this year, yesterday was just a fine day on the water in that respect.  The bite though was slow, probably because it was so pretty.  The game plan was to do the lazy angler thing on the reef in a little deeper water to see what kind of big stuff might want to play.  Now you might be wondering why I have a photo of Elijah with a regular old 15 inch yellowtail.

The lazy angler thing is just chumming heavy and not getting too crazy about yellowtailing.  Catch enough for dinner, like the one in the photo, but put out some live baits on the surface and near the bottom to see what else the chum brings to the party.  The live bait this time of year is generally ballyhoo which are normally very easy to catch.  Well yesterday the ballyhoo wanted absolutely nothing to do with our plan.  They wouldn't even look at the small baits we had on hair hooks and never got right to cast net had we have had the common sense to not leave it at the dock.  Yep, that is right sports fans, I forgot my net and Elijah's dad who normally keeps his net in the boat forgot his. The only live bait action we had was a trade up from a yellow tail to a monsterous fish that likely never realized he was hooked.  Elijah fought him for a spell but the small yellowtail hook straighten out ending that part of the show.  So after catching a few yellow tails and not catching ballyhoo we moved into the shallower patches to look for Mangroves and other stuff.

More of the same really.  There were tons of Mangrove in the bearly legal range with a good number of larger fish that we could never get a bait to.  Had we had smaller live baits we would have probably tangled with a few, but we didn't so we didn't.

Next stop was the hawk channel rockpiles with not much time left in the day for fishing.  Right off the bat we had a cut off on a dead ballyhoo then Elijah hooked into what was likely a pretty large Jewfish AKA Goliath Grouper.  That battle produce some nice action photos of Elijah on the rod, but the Jew Fish aka Goliath Grouper turned back toward the boat and opened its mouth resulting in an end of that part of the show.  Some small blue runners showed up so we put one out and within 30 seconds Elijah's dad was hooked up on a 20 to 30 pound barracuda.  On one of their lighter spinning outfits it was a good match and dad appeared to have a pretty good time.  Elijah was promoted to videographer during the barracuda battle and deserves extra credit since he caught the bait.  Dad seemed to have had a pretty good time as he posed for photos which somehow never made it to my email, so they are not in the post. 

Another barracuda showed up and ate Elijah's blue runner.  Unfortunately, the barracuda also ate all of the wire leader and cut the main line before ever feeling a hook.  We manage to catch three live baits and all three produced some action within minutes of hitting the water.  Unfortunately, the bait disappeared.  With the bait no longer wanting to play we headed back to the dock.

There are a couple of morals to this story.  First, never assume that your buddy brought the cast net.  Second, never underestimate the value of those pinfish that you left at the dock.  Third, even when you forget the first and second you can still catch dinner and find something that will pull a drag fishing in the Florida Keys.

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

Bye-Bye Buggers Phase I

The first wave of Florida Spiny Lobster gathers are headed back home.  I do my best to stay off the water during the two day sportsman season.  It gets to look like a parking lot out there.  This year it seems they all played nice and had a productive trip.  Next week the traps will start going back in the water then the regular season will start the second week of August.

Fishing wise, the full moon is waning so day fishing on the reef will be a lot easier.  Offshore Tuna should be good with larger dolphin a bit hard to find among all the smaller peanuts.   The peanuts make great bait for Marlin and such, so this is the time of the year when the big fish stories become more regular.

While the main tarpon run is past, there are plenty of resident fish that fall for some of the old school tactics like dolphin bellies soaked on the bottom.  Sea trout should be in the bay along with the Mangroves returning from the spawn.  Some of the Gulf wrecks should be producing a mixed bag of everything from snapper to permit to cobia if you have the weather and the gas money to make the run.

Looking at the weather, it is hard to say what the heck is going on.  This week the weather was beautiful and last week it was wicked.  When it is a little more predictable, summer can be a great time to run to Cay Sal for some serious fishing adventuring.  When it is not predictable, doing a back country out offshore home two day trip can be a lot of fun.  That way you can get to some shelter if things get too sporty or camp near some of the back country Keys if you have plenty of bug spray should the wind calm.  Late summer is best suited for two or three day get-a-ways for Florida residents that can drive down.  After next week the room availability will free up and the off season rates start kicking in at various places.  That is a great time for sneaking in for good fishing at more affordable prices. 

One thing good about all the bad weather is that the fishing has picked up.  The weather reduces some of the pressure and get things mixed up enough make things interesting.  I am going to try and sneak out for some scouting in a week or so of the bay wrecks that are not too far back to see if pre-Wilma mix is back.  Before Wilma stirred the Bay up there was some serious trout fishing fairly close with the occasional grouper,  big mangrove and legal cobia without having to run all the way to the Gulf.  It can be hit or miss, but on a hit it is amazing.  Add some Florida Lobster to the mix and the box can look mighty impressive.

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 Bite

Yes, those are Yellowtail Snapper, the smiling faces of Andrew and his dad and sun shine!.  Yes, the clouds parted, the rain is on pause, life is good again.

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