I'm Cooking Now!

After threatening to buy on of those counter top convection ovens with the rotisserie I did the deed thanks to a ding at Kmart. Hamilton Beach twin 12 inch pizza baking with rotisserie! Since is was cold and windy last night, it has perfectly bake four loafs of bread, a batch of bacon-cheese cornbread muffins and a pound of bacon. All the while keeping my little place warm and restauranty smelling!

Oh, wait! This is supposed to be about fishing.

I fished my buddy Sonny Monday. Sonny first fished with me about 12 years ago with his uncle Victor out of Captain Pips. Now Sonny is growed up with is own boat. This time he brought down a 30 foot Carrera with twin Mercury Verado engines. I had Sonny meet me at the Seven Mile Marina.

Now I did not know that Sonny had a new boat. Last time he was down with a 22 foot boat, so I was a bit surprised to see his new ride. The young gun captains at the marina were a little surprised to see the boat also.

Monday was a slick calm day, perfect for running offshore in a high performance 30 foot Carrera with twin Mercury Verado engines and a sound system nearly as powerful. So I took over the controls of the boat, push the throttles up to a comfortable cruise and nearly 2 minutes later pulled it back to neutral at the Mangrove snapper fishing hole by the bridge. :)

I'll take Sonny someplace a little further down the road later this year, Monday was a half day snapper trip. We did just fine with a near limit of fat mangroves, a Cero Mackerel of respectable size and a very fat yellow jack.

Both Cero and Yellow jack are not bad at all on the table. Cero is the best eating of the mackerel in my opinion other than Wahoo. The yellow jack is tasty with firm flesh and nearly white meat a lot like Cobia with a hint of tuna thrown in. It is one of the few jacks that I will eat not smoked other than pompano, both regular and African.

Now that I am done with the Christmas Rush, I have a few days to work with a few other boats I need to get into order. Flatlines, the boat my buddy Doc owns, should be running now so I need to get her cleaned up and hauled. The Walkabout is running fine, but I need to set up a few things so I can fish it easier single handed. Nothing major, but I need to rig the anchor so I can set it without climbing around stuff too much. To do that, I need to first get an anchor set for not too easy break away. Then I am going to run some less expensive half or three quarter days for my bridge and channel regulars.

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

Happy New Years!

Chicago Joe, Joey, Shelbi and I started off the New Year with a shark fishing trip. Hey, what can I say, people like playing with fish as big or bigger than they are. We missed a couple shots at sexier sharks but a sharpnose on light tackle and a large nurse, just for the photo op, we fine for the crew. Shark catching was followed by a light lunch at Burdine's ChikiTiki and a little swim on the ocean side away from the shark chumming.

Chicago Joe had more than enough snapper for dinner from the past couple of trips, so today was just a sleepy short day before turning in his boat. We could have had our way with the Mangroves or the Lanes again, but a photo op with a seven foot shark may just impresses the gang back in Chi town better than pictures of snapper grilled, blacken and fried.

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

Bridge Fishing is Pretty Hot

This is Chicago Joe with one of his bridge Mangroves. That fish is in the three pound range. We limited or at least came close enough to limiting out is about 2 hours this morning after spending a little more time than normal getting the right size bait. The bait that fish fell for was a candy size pin fish about two inches long. Pilchard and the larger live shrimp also caught quite a few fish, the candy pin fish though always seem to find the bigger mangs.

Since Joe is tired of filleting fish, tomorrow should be a shark expedition.

Bridge charters are a good way to get on the water, learn basic techniques and catch dinner without breaking your vacation budget.

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

What Day is it?

I think today was Day 5 with Chicago Joe. Anyway, the photo is of the catch of Lane, Mangrove and Mutton Snapper. These were mainly caught in the channel, but we hit the bridge for a while and picked up the larger mangroves and a few stories about big fish that got away.

Yesterday, the fish won. We got covered up with King Mackerel trying to yellowtail plus Amberjack and a shark or three.

I did fit in a trip the day before that with Dan and his daughter Katelynn. That was supposed to be a sailfish trip but turned into dolphin without a gaff trip. We managed to get two in the box for dinner but the rest broke off trying t5o convince them to come aboard. They were not big, but big enough that a gaff would have been handy. Those fish were inside of 300 foot. We did stop at the kiddie pool to play with the blue parrot fish, which Katelynn seemed to enjoy.

The Dolphin trip started out a bit bumpy but finished with nearly flat seas. The last two days have been 5 to 10 and great weather though I did break out my long pants.

It looks like tomorrow will be a big critter at the bridge day since they have plenty of fish for a few days, though a few more fat mangroves will always be welcome.

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

Day 3 with Chicago Joe and Nebraska Deer Jerky!

Day 3 with Joe was a struggle. The winds were just strong enough to keep the bait away and the anchor tripping. The fish we did get were nice. One Lane was 20 inches long about 3 pounds and we got a keeper red grouper. Lost nice fish to the bottom again.

Yesterday was fishing with the guys from Nebraska. I started them off at Kmart doing the basic tackle thing, then the tackle shop for chum, live bait and the things Kmart doesn't have, then we stopped by water at another tackle shop to get the things that Kmart and the first tackle shop didn't have. Christmas must have been fun since no one was back to normal yet. Then finally we set off to the Bay for some Spanish mackerel. It is a shame that Spanish have a bad reputation on the table because everyone caught plenty of fish.

Then we gave the Long Key bridge a shot, caught the tide wrong so I headed out to a channel hump to finish the day. I think they got enough ideas to have plenty of fun for the rest of the week.

They didn't break out the Nebraska grain fed deer jerky until near the end of the trip. I am a jerky junkie so I will remember that part of the trip for a while. They even had kippered jerky, YUM! Shame I am booked into next year. I might convince them they need a refresher course on sailfish or something that goes well with jerky munching :)

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

Day Two with Chicago Joe and Crew

Bait is still a little bit of an issue. Plenty of pinfish of course, but I have not seen any ballyhoo in net range nor my thread fin herring I was expecting. So with just live shrimp and pinfish, we managed a fair catch of lane and mangrove snapper and on 22 inch red grouper.

As usual, jacks are everywhere, plenty of throw back grouper and a few big ones that got away. We started in the Bay mainly to find white bait, the jacks were wo thick that it was hard to find anything else. We hit the bridge for a while and the current and anchor didn't play well. We did get a few nice mangroves but decided to head back out to the rock piles once the current really started ripping.

On the rock piles the lanes were still thick and hungry plus a few more decent size mangroves wanted to play. The 22 inch red we got to the box was nice, but we lost one big brute to the rocks and another to a shark. The crew had an okay time, but we have done much better in the past so I had better get on the bait tomorrow so I can get some good pictures. So far though, nearly forty snapper and one keeper red.

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