Things are really picking up out there for us!  I had a chance to night fish twice this past week and I absolutely can't complain! The big yellowtails are biting very consistently on the wrecks near the edge of the reef and the mangroves are really starting to show up. 
 
As for the yellowtails we are catching them every single night in the 1 to 4 pound range.  The numbers of fish vary based on the conditions, but we get at least a handful every trip. Tuesday night, for example, they were very hard to catch because the current was going right underneath the boat.  This makes it almost impossible to succeed at yellow tailing. The ones we caught were very nice, but not very numerous.  
 
The main highlight of the summer is the mangrove snapper spawn, which is almost in full effect!  We have been seeing them a bit more each and every night.  A week ago we were only getting a few, and last night we got 30 or so of them.  These numbers will continue to grow for the next few weeks, then stay steady for a couple weeks before declining.  In about a week we will be catching or boat limit more often than not on the night trips.  
 
The "grovers" are very active in the day time as well, so long as you get right on top of them.  We caught about 50 of them on Monday in the daylight in 22 feet of water.  I really enjoy targeting them on the party boat because in my opinion they are better eating than a yellowtail and more fun to fight.  
 
Going back to the nights, Capt. Ron has been putting on quite a show with permit!  Catching permit is something that most people would never, every think about doing on a night trip, but Capt. Ron has found one wreck that is holding them in huge numbers.  They are biting on live crabs casted out of the lights of the boat.  The average size is about 15 pounds but they have boated them up to 40 in the last few weeks.  I don't believe these hard fighters will be around too much longer, so if you ever wanted to catch a permit at night right now is the time to do it!
 
Capt. Shannon on the "Satisfaction" out of Robbie's had a couple of really successful night charters this week.  He is only charging $500 for 5 hours and catching really nice yellowtails, mangrove snappers and muttons.  He likes to fish with a combination of fresh ballyhoo and live pilchards for the night snappers.  If you are interested in getting out there with him you can call 305-664-8070.
 
On the couple of occasions we fished the deep wrecks lately we came up with mutton snappers up to 12 pounds and a gag grouper that tipped the scales at 25 pounds!  Those deep water fish are out there in full force right now; don't miss it if you have the means to go after them!  
 
I look forward to putting you on some fish,

Capt. Brian

June 10, 2009

We found ourselves fishing in deep water more than shallow for the most part this week.  I can't say that we had any huge numbers of fish that we brought in from these areas, but we did catch some real quality fish.

We found king mackerels up to 10 pounds, mutton snappers up to about the same (at night), red groupers up to about 8 pounds, blackfin tuna up to 20 pounds and dolphin ranging from "schoolies" to a 25 pound "slammer".  The slammer was caught in 127 feet of water while we were catching porgies and red groupers.  A smaller fish about 4 pounds came right up near the boat and ate a live grunt thrown from the upper deck.  While we were fighting that fish the big boy came right up within 10 feet of the boat before eating a whole ballyhoo on a kingfish rig.  The fight took about a half hour, but it would have been much longer if we hadn't pulled the anchor and chased the fish down. Normally you don't really have to chase dolphin, they tend to come to the path of least resistance, but the current was very strong that day and the fish was about 150 feet away from the boat using his big body as a planing board in the current making it almost impossible to gain any line.  The options were to tighten the angler's drag and put more pressure on the fish, all the while hoping not to break the line, or to pull the anchor and chase the fish.  We chose to go after him and it paid off. 

We have been catching those big blackfin tunas for a few weeks now.  We only get one or two a week but they sure are nice to put in the box when we get a chance.  A friend of mine who fishes outside of Conch Reef and Pickles Reef has been catching the heck out of these same big tunas using live bait in a similar fashion to how many Key's fisherman target sailfish.  

Back on the reef the yellowtail bite has been very good when the current is moving to the Northeast but pretty slow when it's headed Southwest.  Also it seems as though the bite is much better in the morning than the afternoon right now.  60 to 80 feet has been the hot depths.  The patch reefs have been very unproductive due to very clear water. Patches are fantastic fisheries when you can't see the bottom.  But if you can, it can get pretty tough.  

The barracudas are all over the place right now too.  If you find yellowtails schooled up most likely there is a cuda nearby waiting for a meal.  We had two lucky anglers catch big cudas this week and elect to have them mounted by Gray's Taxidermy.  Since we are a registered Gray's agent at Robbie's we can make the process of getting your trophy mounted very easy. 

Capt. Ron has been absolutely slaying the yellowtails at night!  He hasn't had a chance to go see if the mangroves are biting yet because the 'tail bite has been so good he can't leave the wrecks he fishes for them.  In my opinion the mangroves aren't really there yet anyway.  It's another few weeks before they really start spawning hard.  

We would like to welcome a new charter boat into the marina! The vessel's name is "Satisfaction".  It's a 32 foot SeaCraft center console.  It cruises at about 30 knots and is licensed to fish up to 6 people.  It happens to be owned by the author of this report and captained by one of our Robbie's alumni.  However, anytime requested I will love to hop on board and show someone the reef/wreck fishing trip of their lives! The rates of the boat are comparable to the other center console offshore boats in the marina: $700 for half day, $800 for 3/4 day and $900 for all day trips.  As a summer special, however, night snapper trips will be $500 for five hours.  We will be targeting FLAG yellowtails, mangroves, and BIG mutton snappers.  The contact number for the boat and business is 305-393-2029.  Feel free to call anytime.  

Thanks again for readin',

Well the yellowtail bite was red hot there for a while, but it has kind of tailed off a bit (no pun intended).  We did have a couple of really good days last week where we caught the heck out of them, but for the most part its been tougher than it was in early and mid may.  I do expect that to change, as we should find the 'tails biting well for quite a while.  They should be extremely abundant all summer long.  

The mangrove snappers are one of my favorite party boat fish.  They are great on the dinner table, fun to catch and when spawning they are really easy to catch.  I fished a couple of our hottest summertime "grover holes" in the past few days to see if they are showing up on the reef and the answer it no.  It's just a bit too early yet.  The majority of the fish we catch out there in the summer actually came from the bay side of the island.  That's where they reside, but they congregate on the reef to spawn.  It's quite a pilgrimage for them!  

We are, however starting to see large numbers of them in the marina.  This is a great sign because it tells us that the fish are schooling up and migrating that direction.  It should be just a few weeks before they leave the marinas and bridges to meet on the reef.  

Capt. Ron has been doing really well at night with big yellowtails and muttons!  He has been bringing in muttons anywhere from just keepers up into the mid teens poundage wise.  We have got a few muttons in the day time too, but if you are really interested in targeting them I would recommend you join Capt. Ron on a night trip.  

Probably the most exciting catch we had this week was a 20 pound blackfin tuna!  It ate a whole ballyhoo on a three-hook kingfish rig fished in 157 feet of water.  The fish took about 25 minutes to bring to the gaff on a spinning rod that the angler had rented from the boat. 

Just before we got the tuna I was on the upper deck of the boat when a dolphin (mahi-mahi) that went about 20 pounds as well swam right by the boat.  I casted a ballyhoo about 5 feet in front of the fish and it lit up, swam two circles around the bait, then swam off.  I guess my bait just wasn't presented well enough for the big boy to eat.  

We also caught amber-jacks, lane snappers, vermilion snappers and kingfish this week.  The biggest king was about 18 pounds.  I haven't seen a grouper in so long that I'm not sure I will recognize one when we do catch it.  They just don't seem to be around right now, at least not where we have been fishing.

Thanks for reading,

May 3, 2009

Sorry for the lag in reports there folks. I'm back on track now and you can count on my weekly updates to be up to date.

I can't say all that much from last week for a couple of reasons. First off we had a lot of poor weather making it so we didn't fish as much as usual. Secondly, we shut the Capt. Michael down for a couple of days to stay ahead of the game in the routine maintenence department. When we did get out there we really didn't find all that many fish to brag about. I have been getting reports that the yellowtails are biting really well but I fished from Tennessee Light, north to Davis Reef and never really found a hot bite all week. Our night trips were much more productive for the 'tails. Capt. Ron Howell and Capt. Jeff Everson found nice tails on wrecks in the hundred foot range and strong numbers of barley keepers in the patches after the sun went down.

It's just too early in the year for the mangrove snappers. I fished some of my ace-in-the-hole "grover" spots and they were basically vacant. At one spot the fish came up in the chum slick so I thought we were in for a good bite but they just wouldn't eat. We tried ballyhoo, silversides, squid, pilchars, bonita and mullet and they just wouldn't eat. The only trick that we weren't equipt to try was down-sizing our lines to 8 pound test. The lightest line on board was 12 pound test. I think that if we had been able to do this we would have produced a few fish.

The kingfish are basically gone. I haven't seen or heard of anyone catching them in a few weeks. I even fished some of the wrecks and structures that normally hold them all winter and never had a bite. I don't doubt that there are still a few around, as their are resident kings in the Key's waters all year long, but the massive numbers of them are long gone.

The grouper bite just simply hasn't been there. We haven't put a keeper black or red grouper in the box for a few weeks. We are seeing some shorts here and there, but nothing to get too excited about.

We only have a couple of weeks until the full moon in May. That should be the start of the big mutton snapper spawn. These fish will be congregating on deep wrecks and other structures to spawn and feed. When they get into the spawn they use so much energy that they need to feed heavily to keep their bodies fueled up. When you get into one of these schools of spawners you stand a good chance of getting a bite every bait that you put down to the bottom. Just be careful not to break off too many fish because when a mutton gets broken off it aggressively swims out of the area which alarms the other fish and can quickly shut down the bite entirely. For this reason it's important to make sure you are using tackle that is in prime shape and your line is in perfect condition.

I would also expect the amberjacks to show up on the reef and nearby structures soon. The jacks always show up when the muttons do (or is it the other way around?), and for this reason amberjack roe is a fantastic mutton bait. Getting it to stay on the hook is a tough task but if you figure out how and you put that bait in front of a mutton it is guarenteed to get eaten!!!

That's all for this week, and thanks for reading.

Capt. Brian

April 6, 2009

A Dirty water was the key out there this week. The wind blew most of the time and it came from all different directions which stirred the water up to a pea soup green. This did a lot of good for the yellowtailing. I can't quite say that we had any amazing days, but we were able to come up with the 'tails on every trip. I fish a lot of deep water (over 100 but under 250) on the boat but I haven't been out there in over three weeks because the reef action has been so good. Another reason for that is because the current has been extremely strong due to the full moon. There has been times this week that 45 feet of water was too deep due to the current.

Another sign that summer is right around the corner other than the 'tails starting to bite is the fact that the barracudas are showing up all over the reef. In the warmer months of the summer they spread out to different areas of the reef to feed on different fish. Mostly they like yellowtails and mangrove snappers, but they also love a few fish that we don't target like blue tangs (doctor fish), wrasses, parrot fish and blue runners. The barracudas are a lot of fun because they put up a nice fight and they make great pictures and mounts! The best way to catch them is to use the same thing they are there to eat such as a yellowtail or blue runner. Just remember that the 'tails you use for bait must be a legal fish which is over 12 inches.

We have been picking up a few king mackerels on the reef lately too. They have been coming into the boat thanks to whole ballyhoos on three hook rigs. This is our default king rig and it tends to be quite productive. There are certainly other ways to catch them, but our simple technique sure seems to do the job. It's pretty much the normal king rig on all party boats in south Florida to my understanding.

There has also been a lot of cero mackerels around as well. In fact the "Fishin' Pole" out of Robbie's came in with one of the biggest ones I have ever seen the other day. It had to be in the 12 to 13 pound range. For a cero that's a monster!!! If you want to target them look for the dirty water on the reef and preferable have ballyhoos back in your chum slick. They will find those chummed up 'hoos from a mile away!

One thing I haven't been seeing too many of is the muttons. We did get about a 10 pounder last Thursday night on ballyhoo plug in 25 feet of water, but that's the only keeper I've brought back to the dock in a while. The good mutton bite should start next month around the full moon. They will be starting their spawning patterns then and will be congregating on wrecks, rock piles and reefs.

Thanks for reading!
Capt. Brian

March 30, 2009
A huge change occurred this week that will probably be great news to most of you reading this. The water temperature has soared up into the high 70s and this has triggered the yellowtails to bite like crazy! In addition to the warmer water we also had very dirty water all week and this made things even better! We caught yellowtails in all different depths of water from 16 feet out to 95 feet. Not all of them were keepers, of course, but we did take home lots of 'tails. In fact, I would say we iced down more yellowtails this week than we did in the entire last month!

In addition to this hot 'tail bite we also found a few nice mutton snappers on the patch reefs. The largest was about 12 pounds caught on a 12-pound test yellowtail rig. Not only did that fish end up on the dinner table that night, but it also ended up hanging on the angler's wall, as he requested to have it mounted.

A few groupers also fell victim to our antics this week as well. I can't say that any one bait was the best, but thinking back on it I would say that a fresh ballyhoo plug was the best bet. We brought home black groupers, red groupers and gags. It was nice to bring in a nice big gag because we don't seem to catch that many of them. It's fun to bring something back to the dock that is a bit out of the ordinary.

I don't have much of a report on the king macks because we didn't target them at all this week. Between the rough weather we experienced and the hot yellowtail bites, going king fishing was just not an option. I am sure there are still a few left out there, but I didn't see any come back to the dock from any boats.

It's about time for the ballyhoo to become very abundant out there. Unfortunately they have been very sparse. I love using freshly netted live 'hoos this time of year on the bottom because it almost always produces a grouper or mutton snapper bite.

I would guess that the 'tails are going to be biting quite well for a long time now, and the mangrove snappers should be right behind them. Personally I would rather catch and eat mangroves over any yellowtail.

So the moral of the story this week is that the 'tails are chewin' like crazy and the weather is forecasted to stay nice for a bit. This is a great opportunity to get out there and start the summer fishing season before the reef gets packed with boats in the summer months.

Thanks for reading,

Capt. Brian

We caught kings every day this week, which was nice. It's great to know that you have a source of rod benders that is as close to a guarantee as you can get. But that day that you count on it and they have shut off it really stinks. As long as these fish keep biting we will keep catching them though!

The yellowtail bite is certainly not good yet, but they have started chewing better than they have in a few months. Capt. Chris King went out early this week with three customers and caught the limit of ‘tails before noon. Meanwhile Capt. Skye on the Blue Heaven out of Robbie's caught some real nice fish but only after down sizing to 6 pound test in order to get the bites. We didn't catch all that many of them on the Capt. Michael, but mainly due to the fact that we didn't really fish for them as much as we fished for the kings, vermilions, lane snappers and porgies. When we did work hard to catch them we did get a few, but they weren't exactly flying over the rail.

Bonitos have been thick out there too. Most people don't get too excited over these fish because they aren't the best to eat, but as a sport fish they are one of the best pound for pound. In fact on Friday a customer caught one that weighed in at 11.5 pounds on 12 pound test. The fight was so fun he found it appropriate to have the fish mounted.

On Saturday afternoon Capt. Ron had the Capt. Michael out in about 200 feet of water when a 75 pound cobia ate a kingfish bait which was a ballyhoo on a three hook rig right by the boat. After 20 minutes of fighting the fish the hooks simply slid out of the fish's mouth and it swam back down into the depths.

We at Robbie's would like to introduce a new business to the marina! David's Bait and Tackle is now open right there on the property. They are open at 6am and close at 7:30pm. They carry all of the necessary tackle for fishing the reef and much of what you need offshore and in the back country. A hefty selection of live bait is on the way but the tanks are just a short time from being installed. Once these live bait tanks are up and running David's shop will rival any other in town. Shrimp and pinfish are planned to be offered and possibly more live baits as well. This tackle and bait isn't just available to Robbie's customers, it's open to the public.

Thanks for reading this week,

Capt. Brian

The yellowtails have been non-existent just like the mangroves. You can go out there right now and go to all of the perfect ‘tailin' spots and use all of the right tackle and most likely not come up with much to show for your efforts.

For this reason we on the “Capt. Michael” have been spending most of our time targeting kingfish and mutton snappers. The kingfish bite has been sporadic and frustrating. I haven't seen a king over 15 pounds in quite a while. The “snakes” have been thick everywhere we normally find the kings. The hottest ticket for us has been the whole ballyhoo on a three hook rig, yet live bait will always out produce a dead bait.

Last week I was lucky enough to be able to right about mutton snappers biting like crazy. This week we did indeed see a few of them come over the rail of the boat but it was nothing like the week prior. I didn't see any charter boats come in with any of them but the party boat got a hand full of them throughout the week. Nothing too big came over the rail but I did see some nice fish caught. The night was the most productive for the muttons this week just like the three or four prior.

As far as groupers go I haven't seen a keeper in about 6 weeks. Normally this time of year we catch lots of red and black groupers. The few that we have seen have come out of the deeper water.

I would predict that the yellowtails and mangroves will start biting soon as the water warms up, but as for now they are still hard to come by.

One nice treat is that even though the reef is tough the dolphin have been very close to the reef which has made an easy life for many of the charter boats willing to venture out to 300ft or so.

Don't get too worried about the status of the reef. The bite is guareteed to pick up in the next few weeks as the water warms up. The snappers are extremely dependant on water temperature and as the air warms the water they will begin to feed heavily again and you will begin to see the yellowtails load up in the chum slick and the mangroves will start to cruise behind the boat again.

Don't worry about how it's been, get out there and find out how good it's getting!

Capt. Brian

I don't want to spend too much time discussing sailfish, as even though they are found in my realm this time of year the offshore boats specialize in them whereas I just dabble with them. The kingfish however, I do specialize in. The fish are still out there and available to catch, but it's getting a bit tougher as the days go on. The hottest bait has actually been live shrimp. Cigar minnows and ballyhoo will still work but for whatever reason the shrimp are better. The best ways of fishing a live shrimp for kingfish is to use a small treble hook on about 5 inches of wire. Hook the shrimp in the horn or the tail and cast it back behind your boat and fish it like you are flat lining for yellowtails. It's best if you have enough shrimp to throw a few handfuls of them out as freebies before starting to fish. This tends to get the kings feeding heavily and expecting to see shrimp in an area where they usually wouldn't. Even though they don't typically see a shrimp floating down in the water column in a hundred and some feet of water they love to eat them and won't think twice about doing so.

I prefer to anchor for this type of fishing and hang a block of chum over the side but you definitely don't have to. If you are confident that a wreck or some type of structure is holding fish you can pull up on the up-current side of it, throw a few free baits, wait a couple of minutes and cast your bait out into the area where you threw the freebies. One more trick to try is to use a light jig head on the end of that wire instead of a treble hook. Use that same jig that you yellowtail with.

As mentioned a minute ago, the snappers seem to be sparking up quite nicely. The most exciting of them is the mutton snapper. We have been finding them on the patch reefs 20 to 30 feet, but mostly on deep wrecks from 100 to 240 feet. The bite is nothing like what it's going to be in a month or two but you can certainly find the fish if you put in the time. The largest fish we have put on ice in the recent future was a twenty pounder which is pictured in this issue.

At night the yellowtails have been chewing much better than they were in previous weeks. The edge of the reef hasn't been all that great, it's been producing mostly small fish. The patch reefs however have been very consistent for fish in the 13 to 15 inch range. One mistake I see a lot of people make in the shallow water when yellowtailing is to use too much weight. If you are in 25 feet of water with light current using a 1/8th ounce jighead it's going to sink to the bottom before it has a chance to get back to the fish which may be a hundred feet back or more. I prefer to use no weight at all, or just a tiny split shot. This way your bait makes it back to the schooling ‘tails without getting down to the bottom where non-target species find it.

Thanks for reading,

Capt. Brian

Most of the boats in town came up with at least one or two muttons from what I heard. It's a bit early in the year for them to really be schooling up and feeding heavily but none-the-less we will take what they give us! These fish are one of my favorites because they can be caught everywhere you go. Bayside, under the bridges, in channels, on the patch reefs, on the reef and on wrecks or other structures in water as deep at 300 feet. I have even seen them on the flats before. This is a pretty rare site today but from what the old timers tell me it used to be that when you went looking for bonefish you had a good shot at muttons too! Whenever I hear these kinds of stories I always tell myself “man, I was born just 50 years too late”. I would be in hog heaven if I could go out and sight fish muttons on the flats a few days a week!

Other than that nice mutton bite I must admit that this week was pretty dead. The kingfish didn't bite as well as they have been, the yellowtails were absent, the porgies kind of shut down a bit, the sailfishing was terrible and the groupers were very few and far between. The only thing that I really heard was biting well was the deep water snappers. Many captains are finding the vermilion, yellow-eye and red snappers to be biting like crazy in waters deeper than 250ft. The nice thing about these fish is that they are all fantastic on the dinner table. When you come in with a box full of deep water snappers you should be as happy as when you catch a limit of mahi-mahi because they are better eating and last longer in the freezer.

Cobias are a big interest this time of year. They are found on the reef and especially on the sand inside of the reef following stingrays. There have been a few great days for targeting “cobes” but for the most part it has been a really weak year for them. But don't panic, it's very early in the season and at anytime the flood gates could open up and you will see these tasty monsters hanging on scales all over the Keys.

If you read my reports frequently you will probably recall me talking about bait a lot. This past week the bait was very hard to come by in my neck of the woods. When you get out there and have a hard time catching ballyhoos or cigar minnows where you almost always catch them you know already that it's most likely going to be a tough day for you. This is because the big predators that we tend to target this time of year are here for the bait as well, and if you can't find it they are probably having a tough time too. When the bait moves up or down the reef the bigger game fish tend to follow suit. Your bottom fish aren't quite as affected because they live a bit of a different life style than a sailfish or king mackerel does. This is why you will see the charter boats doing a lot more bottom fishing this time of year. The dolphin aren't here yet and the sails and kings have been tough. That means it's time to beat on the muttons, groupers and yellowtails.

By the time this is in print everything could have changed completely, so get out there and see if you can't do some damage!

Capt. Brian

When it came to the yellowtails and mangroves the common rule was the shallower you fished the better you did. Our hottest ‘tail bite was on a patch reef that was 18ft deep. We fished it repeatedly over the coarse of the week and it just kept on producing. The only time we fished it without success was on Thursday when the water had begun to clear up. Prior to that the water was very dirty everywhere out there and it made the snappers a lot more susceptible to our antics.

The one fish that I was hoping to be able to come up with this week but couldn't was ballyhoo. The charter boats have been catching them fairly consistently early in the morning over grassy bottoms but they just haven't been anywhere near where we typically fish in quite a while. I love using live ballyhoo on the bottom this time of year in the patches for muttons and groupers.

Another thing the ‘hoos are nice to have for is the king macks. Since we didn't have any live baits we stuck to using dead ballyhoo flat lined back in the chum slick then jigged back to the boat. On Tuesday afternoon we fished the edge of the reef for kings and groupers. The groupers sure didn't bite for us that day but the kings were jumping on basically every bait we put in the water. The big star of the day was a 45-pound king that ate a bait right before we were to head home. We ended up pulling the anchor in order to chase the trophy which was hooked on 12-pound test. After about 35 minutes we finally gaffed the fish and pulled it into the boat. Not only did that monster end up in the icebox but also on the angler's wall. The measurements were sent off to Grey's Taxidermy and the fish will be living permanently up in Illinois.

Finally the night fishing really picked up for Capt. Ron on the 7:30 trip. Thursday night he ended up boating 10 mutton snappers, a bunch of mangroves, vermilions, yellowtails, almaco jacks and margates. He said it was constant action from the drop of the first anchor all the way until it was time to head home. And getting home didn't happen quite as planned as they hooked a large shark or stingray that drug the boat almost a mile in an exhausting hour of fighting before finally breaking off. Talk about a big disappointment!!!

I think this hot action will continue for a couple more weeks, so get out there and take advantage of the opportunity. Plus, keep your eyes out for cobias while you are anchored up or running over the sand inside of the reef.

Thanks for reading,

Capt. Brian

We didn't see a whole lot of huge kings but the numbers of fish caught were staggering. I'd say the biggest we put on the party boat this week was in the 20 pound range with the average fish being about 5 pounds. Early in the week was the best bite and it trailed off a bit from there but they were biting well all the way up to the day I wrote this which is Saturday. I saw the Islamorada Lady II come in with some nicer fish in the 30 to 40 pound range that they caught on live bait.

One pleasant addition to our catch this week was two sailfish. They both ate ballyhoo while we were targeting kingfish using spinning tackle. The first one was caught on 12 pound test while the second was on 15 pound test. When we hook a sail on heavier tackle we usually fight them from anchor but both of these fish required us to pull the anchor and chase them in order to boat them. The one on 15 pound test became tail wrapped a few minutes into the fight which made things very difficult for us. The fight took 2 hours and we traveled 2 and a half miles while battling the fish! In the end we did boat the fish, take pictures and have a successful release with the fish swimming away in good health. The only unfortunate part of this catch was that while fighting the fish the other customers were deprived of their fishing time. In order to rectify this situation I gave everyone on the boat a coupon to fish with us again at half price. On a charter boat it would be normal practice to catch one or two sails and the other customers just watch, but on a party boat the customers are expecting solid fishing action so I felt it appropriate to make up for the lost fishing time.

One of the sailfish anglers was also lucky enough to take home a 15 pound dolphin (mahi mahi) that he caught right before the sail ate his bait. The dolphin took him all the way around the boat in a 20 minute fight before meeting the gaff. A fish like this is a bit rare this time of year especially on the reef so we were quite excited to get him on board.

Friday gave us the best yellowtailing that we have had in a while. It wasn't very good when compared to a day in the summer, but it was fun to see the ‘tails back there in the slick and biting fairly consistently. That was the day that the water got a bit dirty and the barometer was dropping due to a cold front on the way. I definitely prefer a dropping barometer for yellowtailing. This was in about 45 feet of water on the inside edge of the reef. In unusual winter fashion the blue runners didn't take over our slick and make it hard to get to the ‘tails. Typically speaking this time of year the runners are very aggressive and numerous but for whatever reason they left us alone on Friday.

Lastly, we found a nice bite of yellow-eye snappers in the 200 foot area on Wednesday. They ranged from 1 to 5 pounds with the average being about 3 pounds. If you have never eaten a yellow-eye (silk snapper) you absolutely must! They are amazing!

Thanks so much for reading,

Capt. Brian

Due to Ron's absence I got to work a bit more than normal which didn't leave enough time for me to got on the computer and put my report together.

Getting a bit more up to date, this past week was quite exciting with king fish, mutton snappers, red groupers, a few yellowtails and lots of porgies and lane snappers. On the Capt. Michael we fish for the most abundant fish that every person on the boat can catch. We tend to fish with 20 or 30 people a lot of the time so we like to target snappers and porgies that bite all the way around the boat. This week we found lots of these tasty fish in the 100 to 200 foot range. And, as usual, in the midst of the 1 to 4 pound fish we picked up a handful of groupers, margates and mutton snappers.

This time of the year it's not always all that productive to target yellowtails, as they don't like to bite all that well when the water is under 70 degrees. The surface temperature out there has been ranging from 63 to 67 degrees. This cold water really shuts down the ‘tails and mangrove snappers that we catch so many of in the summer months. This certainly doesn't mean that you can't catch these fish, it just means that it isn't as easy as you'd like it to be.

The king macks have been a lot of fun too. Most of the charter boat captains I talk to have been limiting out every day that they fished. They stop in the morning to fill the livewell with live cigar minnows then fish them on a wire leader and a treble hook. If you put a cigar minnow anywhere near a kingfish it's most likely going to get eaten right away.

On the party boat we use whole ballyhoo for the kings on a three hook rig. The three hooks are rigged in tandem by attaching the eye of one hook to the shank of the one in front of it. This creates a 6 or 7 inch long stretch of hook making it so you rarely need a wire leader in front of the bait. This rig can be deadly while drifting or at anchor.

On Friday afternoon we anchored up on a wreck in about 130 feet of water. While the customers were working on lane snappers, porgies and kings I put up our kite with a live blue runner on it for bait. About 2 minutes after deploying the bait it got attacked by a sailfish. Once hooked the fish started peeling line off the reel in a fast manner. We pulled the anchor and started backing down on the fish to eliminate the chance of it spooling the rod. The fish never jumped and it acted as if it were foul hooked, or not hooked in the mouth. This makes the fight take a long, long time usually. That was the case in this situation as well. We just couldn't gain any line on the fish no matter what we did. Finally after an hour of fighting the fish I knew that it was indeed foul hooked and in order to land it we had to tighten the drag excessively or the fish would die from fighting so long and being pulled in backwards. Since we don't kill sails at Robbie's Marina I decided to explain the situation to the angler and inform her that we had to tighten the drag even though it was very likely that this would cause the hook to pull out of the fish's skin.

We did tighten the drag to what seemed to be an appropriate level only to have the hook pull out less than a minute later. It was disappointing after that long of a fight, but the whole boat understood that the fish's life was most likely saved by doing this. In the end we all knew that we did the right thing.

I'm starting to reach my limit of space I can take up in the paper, so quickly I would like to mention the mutton snappers. We found nice muttons on Friday morning in about 120 feet eating ballyhoo plugs fished on long leaders. The spot we were on also had a nice kingfish bite and lots of blue runners. Don't be afraid to try for muttons this time of year. They may not be biting like they do in May, but they are out there and they have to eat.

Thanks for reading,

Capt. Brian

I can't say a whole lot for the typical reef fish that we all target such as yellowtails, cero mackerels and groupers, but the deeper water fish like lane snappers, vermilions and porgies were biting like crazy this week!

On the Capt. Michael we were able to find a few mangrove snappers biting on the reef. Capt. Ron took his anglers to a real nice catch of these dinner-time favorites on Saturday afternoon. He found them chewing in about 25 feet of water. They were up in the chum slick as well as on the bottom. People all the way around the boat were catching them using squid, ballyhoo and thread herring. There were over thirty people on the boat and they caught so many that they had to count them to insure that they didn't go over the 5 per person limit. In the midst of these “grovers” they also caught yellowtails, porgies and red groupers that were a bit too small.

Sadly, this is the only hot reef bite we found this past week. However, we had quite a few trips of very successful fishing in the 150 to 180 foot range. I stumbled across a wreck that I had never seen or heard of before in 160 feet of water and found it to be holding lane snappers ranging from 2 to 5 pounds! If you aren't accustom to catching lanes, anything over 3 pounds is a really nice fish. On that same wreck we also came up with two mutton snappers weighing in at 8 and 11 pounds, one cobia that was just shy of the 33” to the fork limit, and about a million blue runners. We had a few kingfish bites there as well but weren't able to boat any of them.
Other wrecks and rock piles in the deep water produced lots of porgies and more lanes. None of the lanes we caught anywhere else came close to the size of the ones on the new wreck, but they were numerous. Porgies are one of my favorite fish down here. They aren't too terribly big, but they taste great and when you get into a school of them you catch ‘em by the dozens.
We also had good kingfish action in this deeper water from time to time. Not every spot we fished was loaded up, but when we got on top of a school of these toothy predators we had a lot of fun! Our main bait for them is a dead ballyhoo on a three hook rig where the hooks are connected in a line. This proved to be quite successful over and over. A live cigar minnow blows a dead ballyhoo out of the water, but you can only use what resources you have at your disposal.

Alex Murphy, the mate from the Conetagious out of Robbie's told me that on Friday they had a great day with 3 sailfish and a box full of HUGE vermilion snappers! He said the “vermies” were biting on every single drop and they were in the 6 to 7 pound range. That's a huge vermilion anywhere you fish, but especially in 300 feet of water outside of one of the busiest fishing towns in the Keys. I've been deep dropping in the Bahamas multiple times and have never had the verms average 6 pounds, even in 700 feet of water. Whatever Al and his Capt. Brian Cone were doing was definitely the right thing to do.
We are coming down off of a full moon this week so I would expect the night fishing to pick up tremendously. The yellowtails have been out there after dark, but with the big bright moon they stayed close to the bottom and didn't feed heavily. Once the moon darkens a bit you will find the fish much more apt to come up in the slick and jump on your lines. As with any reef fishing the night bite depends completely on the conditions. If you find that the current is running against the wind it's most likely not going to be all that productive for you. When this is the case you might want to run a few miles in hope of finding more favorable conditions or head on home and save your chum. But when you get out there and the conditions are right you can catch very nice fish all year round. Yellowtailing isn't just for the summer, it's just a bit easier then.

Best of luck to ya,

Capt. Brian

What a fantastic Holiday week!  We really had what all of us were hoping for as far as business this past week!  Congrats to all of you fishermen who had a nice turn around in business this week, it was well deserved! 

Unfortunately, I must also offer my condolences to Cheeca Lodge for their misfortune over the holiday.  It is an absolute shame and I hope that it can be rectified as soon as possible.  From myself, Capt. Brian and the rest of us at Robbie's Marina we want you to know that we are here to help if at all possible. 

The fishing this week was descent, as compared to the previous few.  We had amazing weather almost every single day which made it possible for boats to target every available species out there including blackfin tunas, mutton snappers, groupers, kings, yellowtails and so on. I saw the Blue Heaven out of Robbie's come in with very nice muttons, kings, and even one awesome red snapper!  The red snappers aren't incredibly common around here so whenever you see one or two come back to the dock it causes quite a stir.  I'm not sure how the fish was caught but I would have to assume it was in rather deep water on a long leader rig with fresh or live bait.  Another nice bottom catch was brought in by the Islamorada Lady II with Capt. Jeff Everson.  They found quality mutton snappers eating live cigar minnows that the kingfish didn't eat before reaching the bottom. 

Almost all of the boats that targeted sailfish this week came up with a few, but all in all it wasn't the best week for these fish.  Some speculate this is due to the calm weather, others feel it's due to the heavier than normal fishing pressure they got on the busy holiday, and others just attribute it to the nature of fishing, some days are great and others are bad.  One way or another if you were out there this week the weather alone made it a great day for you. 

On the Capt. Michael we had some decent yellowtailing throughout the week on patch reefs and on the inside edge of the reef in about 40 feet.  I can't say we ever had a red hot bite going, but if you worked at it you could come up with dinner on a four hour trip.  The nights have been the best bite for ‘tails recently according to Capt. Ron from Robbie's.  He says that if you really want to target nice yellowtails come out after dark and he'll find ‘em.   They've also been catching a few kings and a lot of porgies on those night trips. 

One nice change of pace was that we had a couple of good trips out in the deep water catching vermilion snappers, lane snappers and porgies.  I can't remember the last time I got to write about “vermies”.  They are definitely one of my favorites out there so it was really nice to catch a bunch of them.  The nice thing about these delicious fish is that once you get on them you can usually catch a ton of them, and as already mentioned they are great on the dinner table.   We found them in the 180 foot area for the most part and they were mixed with lanes and porgies.  None of these are incredibly huge fish, but they are a lot of fun when you can catch a bunch of them and your bait gets eaten as soon as it hits the bottom! 

The kings are still snappin' out there in all the usual spots.  They have been an staple for almost every boat fishing as the sails have been slow but the kings live in the same general area.  If you aren't getting action from the sails you can almost always bend some rods with the kings.  They are a blast to catch and although they have a bad reputation on the table, they are quite good when cooked fresh or smoked. 

Thanks for reading,

Capt. Brian

One of the most exciting occurrences this week was that there appears to be a lot more people in town and I have noticed a lot more boats out fishing than I did just a week ago. This helps me out because I like to get reports from other boats in addition to the one I work on. I find it to produce a much better report for you if I pole other captains than just myself or Capt. Ron, out night skipper.

I'd have to say that the hottest bite of the week was the kingfish. We were able to find them biting basically everywhere we fished inside of 300 feet of water. I heard similar reports from basically every captain I talked to from Marathon to Key Largo. All the usual baits were working, but cigar minnows as usual were the hottest ticket. We were able to catch them as shallow as 20 feet. I have definitely found that ballyhoo are the best bait in these shallow patch reefs. This is most likely due to the fact that they are mainly feeding on “hoos” in the patches, making them the meal of choice.

Speaking of ballyhoo, they are a necessity for fishing the reef this time of year because you need them for sailfish, which makes them number one on all of the charter boat's lists when they leave the dock in the morning. They have been very available around the different sanctuaries in the Islamorada area. That's certainly not to say that that's the only place they are, but it's been very consistent in those areas. All you need to catch ballyhoo is a block of chum, a cast net and a little luck. Once you have a livewell full of ‘hoos you have the first step needed to make a great day on the water.

Yellowtails are another important topic in our area, so it's only proper to talk about them for a minute. They have been biting as well as you can expect for this time of year in the patch reefs and on the main reef line in the 40 to 60 foot range. They aren't coming up into the chum to the point where you can see them as they eat the bait like they were in the summer, but they most definitely are there and biting. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean you are in the wrong area. They only way to truly find out if you have ‘tails in your slick is to give the spot a good 20 minutes of fishing and see what you catch. It always helps to have confidence in your spot, but if you are new to the area and don't know if you are in a productive area you simply need to fish the spot hard and try different presentations and techniques. You do have to draw a line between wasting your time and impatience if they aren't biting though. My rule is 20 minutes. If I haven't caught my target in that time I move on to another spot.

The grouper bite has been a bit disappointing for us lately. I haven't seen any boats bringing in any in a couple of weeks. On the party boat we have been catching lots of short red groupers, but not a single keeper. It seems as though the bite was much better in November, however they do reside here and if you pay your dues and put in some time you should be able to find them.

The Islamorada Lady II caught a real nice mutton snapper while using live cigar minnows on a down-rigger on Friday. Normally you would never use wire when fishing for muttons, but it's amazing what a live bait will do to a predator like a mutton. When they see that bait separated from a school and all alone they almost can't pass it up, regardless of the wire or a treble hook.

I hope this report can help you in your next fishing trip.

Capt. Brian

As far as the snappers I don't have a whole lot to report this week. The Capt. Michael didn't do a whole lot of yellowtailing or serious bottom fishing due to the hot kingfish bite. The kings were biting so well that we just couldn't pass them up. That's not to say that we didn't catch any ‘tails, but we sure didn't target them much.

The kings were biting so well basically everywhere that every charter boat I talked with had the exact same report… HOT HOT HOT. Live cigar minnows were, as usual the hottest bait. But they were eating everything else including ballyhoo, speedos and pilchards. The Islamorada Lady II out of Robbie's Marina fished on Wednesday and had their limit of kings in 23 minutes fishing in about 110 feet of water. They caught them all on cigars with a treble hook and 6 inches of wire. Amongst the kings they stirred up a few sailfish as well, making for one heck of a start to the day.

On Saturday Capt. Skye on the Blue Heaven came in with a sailfish flag flying and a box full of kings and a very nice mutton snapper in the 15 pound range. Once again, cigar minnows were the bait of choice.

I write about bait and what kinds are important to have at your disposal every week. I guess it's important to mention that I work in Islamorada, which is the bait fish capital of the Keys. I've worked all up and down the Keys and I can tell you that there is so much more bait in Islamorada than anywhere else in the county. This is also part of the reason why the fishing here is so good. The food chain is highly based around bait, and where you have lots of it, you have lots of big fish.

The night fishing has been hard to get reports from. Basically the only for hire boat that I know of that is fishing after dark is the Capt. Michael. We've been coming home with yellowtails, kings, mangroves and porgies. Most of our night time customers prefer to target the ‘tails, so even though it's not as good as it was a few months ago we still shoot for them. Some nice fish came off of wrecks in the 100 foot range, and lots of just keepers are coming out of the patch reefs.

Last week I spent a lot of time talking about cero mackerels, and this week they weren't as available as they were the week prior. We did catch some, but we didn't find any red hot bites.

I've heard some reports from charter boats of cobias being caught in the shallows inside the reef, and Capt. Ron on the Capt. Michael put one of his anglers on a nice 20 pounder on Saturday. The fish was caught in 120 feet of water on a live cigar minnow.

Thanks for reading,

Capt. Brian

December 13, 2008

If the business had been half as good as the fishing this week we'd all be sittin' pretty, but unfortunately the number of customers in town is just not what we'd like it too be. The fishing though, has been quite amazing! I'm gonna lay off the sailfish thing for a week here because I can only imagine that the charter boat caps are going to have a ton to report in that category.

For us on the party boat the kingfish got big and stupid this week (the perfect fish)! The most productive depth for them was about 120 feet it seems, and they were eating anything you put in the water that had any flash, silver or blue on it. Sometimes we opt to fish with no wire leader because if you use the wire you don't get many bites, but this past week you could have put a ballyhoo on the end of an anchor chain and they would have eaten it. With live bait you can usually get away with wire because that live cigar minnow or pilchard is so attractive to them that they ignore the wire. On the party boat we maybe fishing with anywhere from 10 to 50 people so live baits just aren't a very viable option. We could stop and spend an hour of our 4 hour trip catching cigar minnows and fill the live well, but we would still run out of bait if the bite is hot. Plus, making 50 people watch the mate throw a cast net on baits while they don't get to fish just wouldn't work out so well. For these reasons we stick to dead ballyhoo for the kings.

Capt. Arek on the “Fishin' Pole” charter boat out of Robbie's Marina had a great day of near shore patch reef fishing on Thursday. His customers were able to go home with nice yellowtail snappers, mangroves, mutton snappers up to 9 pounds, cero mackerels and a ton of pictures of groupers that just didn't make the legal size limit. The variety and quantity of fish were quite impressive!

Speaking of cero mackerels, they are one of the most commonly underrated sport fish out there. They get up into the 15 pound range, with the Florida record being 15 pounds, 8 ounces. This makes them a prime target for light tackle. Take it from someone who's out there basically every day of his life… there is nothing more fun than targeting ceros on 6 pound test with live ballyhoo from an anchored boat! You can catch these fish a hundred different ways, but if you were come to me today and charter me to show you a fun day of fishing with loads of drag screaming action my first choice would be to go net some ballyhoo and chum up the ceros. I'd bring the lightest tackle I could get my hands on, a box of small treble hooks and a spool of light wire. If the water is dirty and the wind is blowing hard out of the east or south east you get a bite on almost every cast! It's absolutely a blast. As far as edibility they are no snapper or grouper, but they are much better than any kingfish or spanish mackerel. For this reason they make a great target for the sport fisherman who is not out there just to stock his or her freezer with meat. On this type of trip I prefer to release the fish once boated so they'll be there again for the next angler. Using treble hooks and wire I prefer to bring the fish in and de-hook it as opposed to letting it go with all that hardware in it's mouth. Not to mention it can get expensive if you don't too!

Ceros can be targeted in so many ways that almost any type of angler can enjoy them. You can take them on anything from a hand-line to a fly rod. They eat dead bait, live bait, jigs, plugs, flys, poppers… you name it and they'll hit it when they are chummed up and feeding heavily. As with the kings and spanish, watch out for their teeth. They are sharp as a razor and the mouth is completely encircled with them.

The busy season is right around the corner, so get out there and enjoy a vacant reef while you can.

Capt. Brian

December 5, 2008

The big talk on the reef this past week was most definitely the sailfish. They have been everywhere you can possibly find ballyhoo and out into the 150 foot range as well. They are primarily feeding on the ballyhoos right now, but it's hard for them to pass up a live goggle eye or cigar minnow as well.

Sailfish really don't fall under my jurisdiction when it comes to day-to-day fishing, so I'll leave that report to the offshore boys. We do catch a few sails here and there on the Capt. Michael, as Capt. Ron Howell's angler did this past Monday, but the number of sails we catch in a year is less than a lot of charter boats catch in a week.

The kingfish bite has been red hot on almost every structure out there off the edge of the reef. Whether it be a wreck, coral heads, man-made fish structure or any other structure that can possibly hold bait you will find kings hangin' around there. They will jump on almost anything you present them when they are schooled up as thick as they have been recently. This is because there are so many fish in the school that if they don't throw caution to the wind and snap at anything that moves they'll never be the first fish to the meal. It's sort-of that “early bird gets the worm” theory, but in this case it leads to being in someone's smoker that night.

It seems as though the kings are hanging off the edge of the reef in the daylight, but then after dark they have been moving up onto the reef. Most likely this is because they can feed on the goggle eyes and pilchards that become active after sun-down. One tip I can offer for fishing the kings on the reef rather than out deeper is to use less weight on your rigs regardless of what technique you use.

The yellowtails have become rather sluggish and inactive lately. This is mainly due to very cold water temps. The water has dipped well below 70 degrees out there and this makes the ‘tails as lethargic as they ever get. This isn't to say that you can't catch them now, because you most certainly can, but it's no where near as exciting as it is when the water is over 74 degrees.

I haven't seen any large mutton snappers come back to the dock lately. I'm confident that if you were to go out there and target them you most certainly could come up with a few, but the charter boats are all targeting sails now and on the party boat we have been concentrating on the shallow water for the snappers and drifting for kings.

As for that shallow water, most of the yellowtails and mangrove snappers that we have been catching are coming out of 20 feet of water or less. Basically, we are targeting the live coral bottoms that we can find as close to shore as possible in order to find some actively feeding snappers. Live shrimp are a phenomenal bait in this shallow water this time of year. They aren't cheap, but it can be the difference between going fishing and going catching.

A hand full of cobias have been found following sting rays this past week as well. When you find a school of these fish your best bet is to have a livewell full of grunts for bait. They will eat just about anything, but a good old grunt is one of there favorites. Plus, the grunts help the cause by swimming down towards the cobias as opposed to staying on the surface.

Thanks for reading,

Capt. Brian

Getting to the fishing, this week was actually a phenomenal one for almost everyone who stayed within the 6 mile mark. On the Capt. Michael we caught yellowtails, mangrove snappers, mutton snappers, amberjacks, black groupers, gag groupers, sailfish, lane snappers, vermillion snappers, dolphin, porgies, king mackerel and many more species! It's not every week that I can report such a vast array of species caught, so I hope that helps relay how good the fishing really is right now. I can't think of a reef species that isn't available right now. The only uphill battle to fight is the one with the wind, but when it comes down to it we can't complain too much because that rough water is what helps get some of these fish biting. It can be tough in a small center console but for a charter boat or party boat it's just another day on the water.

I'd like to take a paragraph to expand on yellowtail snappers (Ocyurus chrysurus) because they are so highly sought after in the Keys… They are definitely biting now but nothing like they do in the summer months. The main reason for this is water temperature. In the cold winter months these fish feed less aggressively because their metabolism has slowed down and they are no longer fueling a spawning body. Rather they are just living for the next spawning season like most of the other fish out there. All fish on the reef feed heaviest while spawning, and yellowtails are no exception. The prime months for “tailin'” are May, June and July. We put quite a few ‘tails on ice this week, but nothing like we would have in the summertime.

One of the big attractions out there this time of year is the king mackerel (Scomberomorous cavalla). This is a fish that can reach over 90 pounds, but the average in the Keys is in the 10 pound range. The minimum size is 24 inches from the tip of the lower jaw to the fork of the tail. CAUTION, the measurement is not to the tip of the tail like on most fish, it's to the inside of the fork of the tail! In Islamorada the top bait for these toothy pelagic fish is a cigar minnow (round scad), but they will eat almost anything if you present it properly amongst a school of fish. Wire leader is almost a necessity due to the razor sharp teeth that line the whole mouth of these voracious predators.

Another big hit, perhaps the biggest among charter boats this time of year is sailfish (Istiophorus albicans). Many people think they are an offshore species that can only be caught trolling big lures out in the Gulf Stream while burning countless gallons of fuel and hoping to see that bill come out of the water behind the bait just before a hook-up. Fortunately, this is far from the way it really is in the winter months in the Keys! If you charter a boat to take you sailfishing this time of year you will find yourself no more than 6 miles from shore chasing frigate birds which have a symbiotic relationship with ‘sails or chasing “showers” of ballyhoo which the sailfish are chasing and preying upon. In fact, don't be surprised if many of these fish you catch are in less than 50 feet of water! For this reason, I can include sailfish as part of my reef fishing report every winter.

We did catch one sailfish this week on the party boat. The fish ate a live ballyhoo on a spinning rod spooled with 20 pound test monofilament line. This was no accident, I prefer to fish for ‘sails on light tackle, which makes it much more sporting.

The other big highlight of the week was a 45 pound black grouper (Mycteroperca bonaci) caught in 100 feet of water on a rental rod. Party boat rental equipment has always gotten a bad rap, but this story is a testament against all of that in my opinion. We had just anchored on a new spot when I walked down the ladder from the upper deck only to see two rods simultaneously bow over towards the water. One was on the back of the boat and the other was on the bow. The fish on the back of the boat was brought up and gaffed about 3 minutes after hooking up. It was an 11-pound amberjack caught by a very happy angler from Connecticut. The other fish ran into a hole and “rocked up”. After about 10 minutes of a stale mate between angler and fish my mate Galon Johnson took the rod from the customer's hand and with all the might he had pulled the fish from the hole she was in and quickly handed the rod back to the angler. Roughly 8 minutes later we gaffed a 45 pound black grouper that not only became dinner for many folks that night but also was mounted by Grey's Taxidermy and will be forever remembered while the replica hangs on a wall in Chicago, Illinois.

I hope that not only do you enjoy reading this report, but also you learn from it as well…

Capt. Brian

Since this is supposed to be a report, not a prediction I'll get into what happened last week out there for ya… The yellowtail fishing was pretty good in the 40 to 90 foot range in the daytime. We are finding the fish almost everywhere we fish, but the areas that are routinely hit seem to be better. This is because the more you fish an area with chum the more you feed the school of ‘tails. They learn that you are a food source and will bite better and better the more times you go there. You'll probably notice if you spend much time on the reef that many of the party boats that are targeting yellowtails fish the same spots day after day after day. The down side to that is that you tend to thin out the population of bottom fish on the spot.

The night time yellowtail bite has remained good too. The fish are good in size and quantity. Capt. Ron is targeting the wrecks in about a hundred feet of water and catching nice “flag” ‘tails. In addition to the main target his customers are also coming up with a few muttons from time to time, porgies, lane snappers, kings and vermilion snappers.

Speaking of kingfish, they are almost everywhere you to right now. Every wreck out there is covered with them, they are up on the reef and even on some of the patch reefs. The hottest bait for them is a live cigar minnow, but if you can't come by any of them you have a great shot with a whole ballyhoo on a 1 ounce jig head with a stinger hook. Please respect the sharp teeth that these fish have. They are quite dangerous once they get into the boat. They cause many, many injuries to fisherman every year. All those teeth have to do is touch your skin and you've get a nasty cut to deal with.

The black groupers are definitely moving around and feeding heavily now. I've been talking them up for a few weeks now, and it's finally happened. If you get onto a wreck out there you can almost bet on getting a few nice grouper bites. Getting them out of the wreck is another story, but getting the bites should be easy for the next few weeks. The prime baits to fish are live grunts, speedos and yellowtails. We caught a handful of nice blacks this week on the Capt. Michael and they came on these baits as well as live cigar minnows and ballyhoo.

The cold weather that is due to hit us this week should really turn things on! Granted, you have to dress a little heavier in order to stay out there, but you should find the reef to be teaming with life!

Capt. Brian

I'm extremely excited to say that this past week was a great one for fishin'!!! Pretty much any fish you can name on the reef was biting and well at that. Even a few fish that you don't always expect to find on the reef, but we'll get to them in a bit.

The yellowtail snapper bite has been consistent and hot! Day and night we are catching lots and lots of these local's favorites. The larger fish are certainly coming in at night, but the sheer numbers of fish keep people happy in the daytime. We have been catching them primarily in the 35 to 45 foot range, but we've also gotten them much shallower and lots deeper too. Capt. Ron has been catching them on bottom rigs in 150 feet of water on the night trips along with muttons and vermillion snapper. It's tough to flatline for them in that depth, so most of the big guys that they catch on the flatlines are coming out of 90 to 100 feet of water. As for the baits to fish with, ballyhoo, squid, silversides and shrimp are always great, and when they are biting like they are now you can put almost anything on that hook and they'll eat it as long as you present it properly.

The next best bite is the mutton snappers. Ron and Nancy White came down to fish with us for a few days from West Palm Beach and along with groupers, mangroves and yellowtails they took home a few very nice mutton snappers. These fish all came on live ballyhoo fished on the bottom in 80 feet of water. In addition to this nice mix of fish Ron also caught a Dog Snapper that weighed 5 pounds. This fish might sound unusual to many of you, and that's because they are pretty hard to come by in the Key's waters. They are very similar to a Schoolmaster Snapper, but have a few different characteristics about them. Lutjanus jocu is the scientific name of this fish that can reach up to 30 pounds. They are just as good to eat as any other snapper, but most similar to the mangrove or schoolmasters.

Getting back to the muttons, we caught quite a few others in all different depths this week on pretty much any kind of bait you can imagine. With the abundance of ballyhoo on the reef right now we fished mainly with them for the larger snappers, making that the most productive bait, but we caught them on pinfish, mullet and speedos as well.

The next good bite was the black groupers. They are starting to make the migration that they do every fall in order to spawn and feed on the reef. If you find a spot where these guys are in the next month or so you are in for a treat! Use your heaviest tackle and big, live baits and you should find yourself eating grouper for supper. If you a beginner to groupers in the Keys, the edge of the reef is a good place to start. Find the edge and just start cruising up and down until you mark large fish on or near the bottom.

Kingfish are biting on everything you throw at them right now. They are being caught up on the reef and out into 300 feet of water on live bait, dead bait, butterfly jigs, whip jigs, crank baits, and etc. etc. I saw the Islamorada Lady come in with a nice catch of kings on Wednesday. Capt. Jeff Everson said that they caught them all on live cigar minnows with a treble hook. He didn't mention what depth they found them in, but he did say that he found them almost everywhere they went. They also caught a few nice “gaffer” size dolphin that day as well. They found dolphin in 30 feet of water, but they wouldn't take a bait. They found the ones that they brought back to the dock in about 150 feet.

Early in the week while yellowtailing and bottom fishing in about 90 feet of water right on the edge of the reef a 35 to 40 pound wahoo cruised through out chum slick checking out the action of blue runners, yellowtails and ballyhoo feeding on chum. Fortunately we had a few speedos in the well, so I threw one on a wire leader right in front of him. After inhaling the bait in one bite the fish darted straight under the boat and ended up becoming tangled in numerous lines and broke off. It was unfortunate, but that's how it goes on a boat with lots of lines in the water. You are bound to lose a few fish to tangles.

So that's my week in a nutshell, I only hope this upcoming one is just as exciting!

Capt. Brian

I can't talk about any 5 pounders this week, but the night fishing has been producing ‘tails that are double the size of the daytime fish every single night. Capt. Ron who is the night skipper of our boat has been hammering the wrecks just off the reef and sending his customers home with ‘tails averaging 3 pounds! That's really a nice average for the Keys. Plus, underneath those big yellowtails are mutton snappers, goliath groupers and black groupers. Plus you can always target a kingfish in those depths as well. When I mention that the night guys are beating up on big ‘tails most people usually ask “why don't we fish there in the daytime too?” The answer to that question is two-parted. First, we do fish those same wrecks in the daytime and the fish are much harder to catch because they are old and wise and they see your line and hook or jig when they sun is on their side. Secondly, fish move. A wreck may hold 3 to 4 pounders by night, but in the daytime you have to measure every fish you catch because they are so small. That's not always the case, but it does happen quite often.

The bottom line: If you want catch great numbers of yellowtails, fish in the daytime, if you want to catch BIG ‘tails fish at night right now.

The next best thing this week was the king mackerel, or kingfish. We found them biting quite well in the 100 to 230 foot range. I can't say that I saw any monsters come back to the docks this week, but the numbers of fish brought in were quite nice. The largest fish I saw came off of the Contagious with Capt. Brian Cone and mate Alex Murphy out of Robbie's Marina. The fish was about 20 pounds and it ate a live cigar minnow. These fish can reach 90 pounds, which is the current world record, but the average size in Islamorada is about 8 pounds. Although this doesn't sound all that big and fun, on 20 pound tackle an 8 pound fish is quite a fight. They are known to make a vicious run when hooked, then come to the path of least resistance until they see the boat, which sparks them to make another hard run down and usually down current. After that “boat run” you usually have them beat. When gaffing these fish remember that they almost always make a circle at the surface, so you can plan on that when setting up to stick a hook in them as your fishin' buddy leads them to the surface.

I also saw the “Fishin' Pole” and “Blue Heaven” come back to the dock with plenty of kings the last few days. Not to be out-done the Islamorada Lady II came in with a box full of kings that they caught with live “cigars”. Capt. Jeff Everson told me “they were biting so well they were fighting over the baits” after he and mate Joe Saba got in from a charter last week.

The other snappers such as lanes, vermilions and yellow-eye weren't quite as frequent of a visitor to our dock this week. This could be due to a lot of different reasons, but the main one is that the ‘tails were biting so well that we didn't need to target them. If I had to guess, I'd say the lanes are snappin' just as well as they did last week.

It's getting close to that time of year when the big groupers bite! Get your heavy tackle ready and go buy some 10/0 triple strength hooks to prepare, because when they chew, it's quite a shame to miss it because you didn't get ready ahead of time!

Remember the size limit on blacks and gags is 24 inches overall length. If you are fishing on the bay side you can knock 2 inches off of that length, but on the reef it's 24. The goliath groupers are getting quite prevalent lately and you really need to know the difference between them and a black, gag or red, so please either study your fish or carry an I.D. book with you when you fish.

Thanks for reading,

Capt. Brian

Not only did we do well with the yellowtails this week, we also caught lots and lots of lane snappers and porgies. Most of the lanes came from the 90 to 185 foot range while fishing various pieces of debris on the bottom such as small wrecks, man-made structure and natural coral heads. These fish come on almost exclusively squid and ballyhoo on our boat, but that's not to say that they don't eat other baits. In fact, they tend to eat that because that's all we fish for them with. If you had shrimp, sardines or flying fish they would eat that too. The lane snappers that we caught this week averaged about ¾ of a pound or so and maxed out at 3 pounds. I know that's not exactly a huge fish, but they are amazing on the dinner table and are quite easy to catch on those days when the reef just isn't going to make your day.

I had the pleasure of fishing with some long time Robbie's customers this week named Dave and Carol Young. They came out on the Capt. Michael with us this past Tuesday and had a fabulous day of yellowtailing and also came up with a few nice lanes. Then, on Friday Captain Arek Wujcek and I took them out on his boat the “Fishin' Pole” for a day of charter fishing. The two main targets of the day were vermillion snapper and hogfish. Mr. and Mrs. Young do a lot of chartering and they had had enough of dolphin, tuna and amberjacks, so we decided to go after some lesser targeted species. We had a rather tough time with the vermies, although Carol caught one that pushed the 4 pound mark, which is respectable anywhere you go and they also boated a few smaller ones too. While trying for the verms in 300 feet of water Dave was able to out match an amberjack in the 25 pound range in addition to a couple of blackfin snappers which didn't make the legal mark.

After this deep water fishing we changed the program completely as we headed into 20 feet of water to target hogs. Fishing with live shrimp and using dead shrimp for chum we caught lots of non-target species such as yellowtails, muttons and red groupers. When it was all said and done we boated 10 or 11 hogs and were able to keep half of them. As you can tell, we didn't have a huge box full of fish, but it was fun to target species of fish that you normally don't go after and succeed in boating them.

The kingfish bite has been red hot for this early in the year! I really hope that this is a sign of how this year is going to be for kings. If so we should have quite a fun winter. Every charter boat that fishes for them has been slaying them and on the Capt. Michael we caught more kings this week than we have in the last 4 months. We caught most of them on thawed out ballyhoo, but a few came on live goggle-eyes or pilchards. We were successful in kingfishing both anchored and drifting, however there is no doubt about the fact that drifting was far more successful.

All of these fish came from 100 to 205 feet of water. This is the general range that you would want to look in if you were in search of kings with no experience kingfishing in the Keys. Remember to rig with wire as these critters have razor sharp teeth!

We at Robbie's would like to welcome a new captain to our staff on the Capt. Michael. Capt. Billy Tyree has joined us after being the skipper on charter and party boats from half way up the East coast of Florida all the way down to Marathon. All of this experience in addition to a full career in the U.S. Navy has set Capt. Billy up for a strong future in our organization. Welcome to the team, Billy!!!

This warm weather is coming to an end, so get out there and take advantage of it while you still can,

Capt. Brian

As far as the Capt. Michael goes we were able to find a moderate yellowtail bite this week. It certainly wasn't an amazing one, but each trip we were able to produce some ‘tails for our customers. Although the water temperature is still nice and high (even too high) the spawn has ended for certain. You may have heard me talk about the mangrove snappers a lot this summer. One big difference between ‘tails and mangroves is that when the grovers are done spawning the bite drastically decreases as the numbers of fish on the reef gets cut by at least 70%. The yellowtails still live on the reef, at least almost all of them anyways, which makes them still very catchable all year round. We did find them biting both day and night in about every depth that we fished inside of 120 feet.

As for other fish that we found biting… the lane snappers are still chewin' well on wrecks and other structures off the reef in the 90 to 170 foot range. It's a bit difficult for me to write about the lane snappers because they are SO structure oriented that if you don't get numbers to where they live from someone who already found them you could spend months looking for a wreck or rock pile that holds them. Fortunately for me, thanks to previous captains in the Robbie's company I know of many of these spots and can catch the lanes fairly frequently. They are similar to the yellow-eye snappers in the deeper water in that you rarely catch one, but when you find them you hit the mother load. As a captain I really enjoy targeting lanes because they are so structure based that in order to catch them it's all on the captain putting the customers on the spot, as opposed to yellowtail fishing where you just have to get close and let the chum and anglers do the rest. If you come back to the dock with a nice catch of lanes you know that you did something right and it wasn't just because you had a bunch of great fisherman on board.

The best day we had for lanes was on Monday when we had a private charter on the boat from Allied Roofing and Metals. The owner and employees came down from the Fort Lauderdale area for a bit of relaxation and fishing after having finished up a hard summer of work installing roofs and hurricane shutters. They were able to catch a box full of lanes, mangrove snappers, king mackerels, muttons, yellowtails, porgies, margates and bonita. When it was all said and done the boys from up north went home with more fish than they knew what to do with. It was a lot of fun to see those guys kick back and have a little fun on a boat instead of scaling roofs in the blistering sun all day!

In addition to the fish that we caught that day we also had a sailfish in the 50 pound range swim within 15 feet of the transom of the boat while we were yellowtail fishing. I placed a live goggle eye twenty feet in front of the fish as it swam away from the boat and it “lit up” in excitement as to the meal it was about to eat only to turn away at the last second. Unfortunately the rig that the goggle eye was on included a wire leader that spooked the trophy billfish away. Sometimes you just wish you had taken that extra 5 seconds to change rigs when things like that happen, but that's the fun of fishing, you never know what's coming next!

Just like us, the other boats in our marina had a tough week business wise but a great one for fishing. The Islamorada Lady II skippered by Jeff Everson went out Friday and brought back flag yellowtails and one sailfish release flag. They saw 3 sails and shook hands with one of them.

The Fishin' Pole from Robbie's had an amazing day of vermillion snapper fishing in about 225 feet of water. I saw Capt. Arek fillet about 30 “vermies” averaging 2.5 pounds on Friday afternoon. If a 2.5 pound average doesn't sound very exciting to you, trust me, these fish are tougher than you might think and bringing them up from that deep can be quite difficult, especially when you get 2 or 3 at a time. Plus, in addition to the snappers they caught sharks and amber jacks. The jacks were in the 20 pound range, which isn't huge, but it will certainly make you break a sweat! Not to mention they're hard to beat smoked!

I also saw Capt. Skye Stanley on the charter boat Blue Heaven with nice catches of yellowtails, kingfish, muttons, mangroves and a grouper or two. Skye has been quite successful as of late on the reef, maybe we'll get him to join the team on the Capt. Michael and make a career out of reef fishin'!!!!

Best of luck to you reef anglers,

Capt. Brian

After Thursday the bite slowed down a bit and you had to hunt around to put a catch together. That's not to say that the fish weren't there, but they sure didn't jump into the boat very readily.

In the day time we had a bit of a tough time on the reef, but the deep water was red hot! The main deep water catch was lane snappers. The most productive day was Saturday when Captain Ron took his customers to about 150 lane snappers, 50 porgies, a handful of yellowtails, a real nice hogfish and a few kingfish. It's always fun in the deeper water because you just never know what's gonna come up next. You find mutton snappers out there, groupers, hogfish, porgies, vermilion snappers, blackfin snappers, etc. It's always fun to be guessing what's coming up on the line before you see it.

On Friday Capt. Chris King had a good day of yellowtail fishing in about 35 feet of water. He said that the conditions were tough, but with only 2 customers on board he was able to make it happen. The current was running out the side of the boat, so it was easiest for him to only put one line in the water at a time. This works on a charter boat, but on a party boat its kinda tough to convince 20 people to only put one line in the water at a time. It took Chris a bit of time, but he was able to coach his customers into catching their limit of yellowtails and going home with smiles on there faces. If you would like to fish with Capt. Chris King you can reach him at 305-664-8070.

Capt. Skye Stanley had another outstanding day this week with 4 black groupers over 15 pounds on the first 4 baits his customers dropped down. They were fishing in about 90 feet of water on the reef using dead baits. Skye said that after catching the four they dropped another bait down and it also got hit right away, but that fish got into the rocks and broke off. When this happens that fish sends out warnings to the other fish in the area and it can shut off the bite. That's exactly what happened this time. The fish were clearly very fired up to bite, but breaking off that one fish shut the bite off like a light switch. In addition to these nice fish they also caught yellowtails, kingfish and mangrove snappers. Capt. Skye has been having great luck lately, and you can find him at the same phone number as Capt. Chris.

This is a great time of year to fish, because there isn't many boats on the reef and the fish are still biting well. Soon we will hit that transition time when the fishing slows down a bit, but for right now it's still very exciting out there!

Come on down to Robbie's Marina this weekend and enjoy our Islamorada Sport Fishing Festival where you'll find vendors, seminars, a fishing tournament and all sorts of fun and games!

See you this weekend,

Capt. Brian

When we did get out fishin' we came to one conclusion for certain… the night time is definitely the time to fish right now. Days have been ok, we've caught some yellowtails, lane snappers, mangroves and short black groupers, but nothing like the night bite. At night Capt. Ron is catching yellowtails by the barrel full in about 100 feet of water. The reports that he is giving me are that the fish are all between 1 and 3 pounds, biting on any kind of bait imaginable and at any level in the water column.

In addition to the ‘tails he has been reporting muttons every night as well. Mainly small keepers, but a couple of big boys have been thrown on the dock too. Most of them have been coming on ballyhoo plugs, while a few ate flatlines while people were targeting yellowtails, while a couple of them came on pinfish.

As I am writing this the moon is big and full. This good night fishing is a bit odd considering the moon phase, but we aren't gonna complain if the bite is better than expected! The big bright moon does help explain why the yellowtails have been biting so well on the bottom lately. Ron has been reporting that the folks fishing the bottom with strips of squid have been producing as many ‘tails as the folks flatlining on the back of the boat. I find that when the moon is bright the yellowtails tend to stay very close to the bottom to avoid predation by kingfish, sharks, groupers, etc. When the moon is dark they are a lot more likely to feel comfortable climbing the water column to feed in the chum slick.

One thing that was a surprise to most of us was the clarity of the water after Ike passed by. When Hurricane Gustov slid past us the reef and even water out to 300 feet of depth was stirred up and murky for a week. This time the dirty water didn't even extend out to the edge of the reef, making the reef fishing no better than if the storm hadn't even come our way. I found that Gustov was much better for the fishing than Ike was.

There was a line of dirty water though and Captain Skye Stanley from Blue Heaven Charters took advantage of that on Friday morning. He has a charter of 1 customer who wanted to strictly bottom fish for muttons and groupers. Although he didn't find any groupers to be biting they did catch there limit of muttons! This was all done in about 18 feet of water on 20 pound spinning tackle. You might think that they were all small fish, but they ranged from 6 to 15 pounds. I don't care who you are, you have to be impressed by that! If you are interested in fishing with Capt. Skye on his 32' Regulator you can call him at 305-664-8070.

Most of the boats that have fished out of Robbie's have been going offshore, leaving me with little to work with as far as a reef report, but hopefully what I was able to come up with has given you a good idea of what's going on out there. Basically, nights are great and when the water is dirty the day time has been hot as well.

Good luck out there,

Capt. Brian

Prior to Sunday we had mostly good trips, with a couple of tougher ones thrown in there too. On Wednesday we had very strong current making it difficult to target yellowtails any deeper than 80 feet, but when we did try it the fish we found were big! It was tough fishing but when you got a fish on you knew it was a nice one. Once we decided that the current was a bit too much out there we came into a bit shallower waters onto a patch reef where we came up with respectable sized ‘tails, porgies, one mutton snapper and a splattering of other bottom fish. A young lady on the boat hooked into something huge at that spot which ended up spooling a reel which had about 500 feet of 50 pound test on it. We were just inshore of the edge of the reef on 32 feet when she hooked it, and it ended up running out off the reef and never stopping. In my opinion it was either a goliath grouper or stingray. It's tough to say which but I'd put my money on one of those two.

The bite at night was pretty similar to that of last week. The main spawn is over, so the snappers aren't jumpin' over the rail one after another, but Capt. Ron has been hunting around and finding patch reefs with nice mangroves, muttons and yellowtails. Although the numbers of fish are smaller than they were a month ago the quality is higher. It's getting to be that time of year where the number of people on the boat is far fewer, giving the captain more ability to hunt and find new spots and bigger fish for the 10 or 12 people on board. We all know that slow season is just around the corner which is tough on our checking accounts, but at least the fishing can be more fun for us.

It looks like the storm cells out in the Atlantic are lining up one after another, so get out there any chance you get and find yourself some fish. All in all they are biting well!

Capt. Brian

August 19, 2008

As we all know, Tropical Storm Fay hit us on Sunday night and Monday this week. I was really looking forward to fishing right before the storm hit, as usually the fish are absolutely suicidal at that time. Unfortunately, I didn't get to fish on Sunday, as the storm seemed to scare off all of our business. Plus, we had 6 hours of preparation for the storms to do, which eats up the better part of the day.

Earlier in the week we did get to fish our regular schedule however. The main thing we have found is that the mangroves have all but stopped biting, even at night. Three weeks ago we were catching 150 to 200 mangroves a night. This past week our average was around 40. The daytime averages have dropped even more so than at night. Basically, the summer spawn is over, but that's no reason to stop fishing!

The yellowtails are still biting really well at night according to Capt. Ron from the Capt. Michael party boat. He has been able to find them in the shallow patch reefs, on the edge of the reef and on wrecks in deeper water as well. Friday and Saturday nights were a bit slower than normal for the ‘tails due to the big bright full moon. However, I would expect the bite to get good again by this next coming weekend as the moon darkens again. The phase of the moon going from full to new is always the best here in the Keys for snappers of all kinds. This is going to be a good couple of weeks for you yellowtail fisherman.

Mutton snappers have been finding there way into the Fishin' Pole's box lately along with kingfish. The muttons that Capt. Arek is catching are mostly coming from structure in water deeper than 100 feet. He's catching them on all sorts of baits, but it seems like a cigar minnow plug was the hot ticket as of late. A plug is when you cut off the head and tail of a dead bait and fish with nothing but the good stuff. Typically speaking you want to hook the bait in one end so it doesn't spin on the way down and tangle up your line. Plus, hooking it there will present the bait to the fish in a more natural way.

Many kingfish are being caught right now as well. The Islamorada Lady II caught them using live cigar minnows, pilchards and ballyhoo. Every bait they put down was alive and kickin', but that's not to say that you couldn't catch them on a dead ‘hoo as well. Usually when the kings are chompin' you can get them to eat almost anything.

Another captain from the Robbie's dock took a charter down to waters off of Duck Key to target black groupers. He said that they had at least 6 quality bites, but nothing to show for it. They were fishing with live grunts, cut bonita and live ballyhoos. “The fish were there, we just couldn't do anything about it.” Those were the words of the Cap.

With the moon darkening and a large storm having just past this should be a great week to get out and hit the reef a bit. I would expect the ‘tails to be biting well and the muttons to be hungry as well. As long as the current has subsided a bit from last week you owe it to yourself to get out there and target the big muttons in deep water.

Thanks for reading,

Capt. Brian

August 12, 2008

Well, the annual snapper spawn has definitely reached and passed its peak. The fishing is still quite productive, but it is has slowed down dramatically from last week. The day time mangrove bite has all but ended. We are still finding a few fish here and there, but I wouldn't get too excited about targeting grovers in the day time right now. As for the night time the fish are still biting but we haven't caught our limit in about a week. If you have been reading the past few weeks you remember that we have been catching our limit and coming home a few minutes early every night. This week that's changed, unfortunately. That's not to say that you can't still catch fish out there, it's just not what it was around the new moon.

The yellowtails are still pretty consistent on the night trips right now. Capt. Ron from the Capt. Michael likes to fish for the bigger ‘tails on wrecks off the edge of the reef as opposed to the 12 and 13 inch fish you mainly catch on the reef at night. He has been catching fish of high quality and decent numbers. The numbers of yellowtails coming back to the dock are lower than normal, but that's only because the boat is only targeting ‘tails for an hour or so before heading to where the mangroves spawn. You catch a few yellowtails amongst the grovers, but most of the fish brought on board are the toothy mangroves.

The Fishin' Pole out of Robbie's brought in a handful of really nice mutton snappers mainly from night trips. Capt. Arek has been hitting structures in the 120 to 230 foot depths with ballyhoo, pilchards, cigar minnows and pinfish to hook his customers into muttons from 5 to 16 pounds lately. The current has been incredibly strong lately which makes it tough to fish these depths, but it also seems to turn the fish on and make them bite.

Kingfish have been coming back to the dock in surprisingly large numbers as of late too. You don't usually think of kings this time of year, but they sure are chompin' out there on the edge of the reef and any wreck over 100 feet! Most of the fish are in the 4 to 10 pound range, but I have seen a few “smokers” hanging on hooks too. The hottest bait has been a live cigar minnow, but ballyhoo are working as well as pilchards. While targeting kingfish on Saturday the Islamorada Lady II had an opportunity to cash in on a sailfish. Capt. Jeff Everson said the fish ate a live cigar minnow on a 20-pound spinning rod. Just like the kings, you don't normally expect to catch a sail on the reef this time of year, but when you're out there you have to be prepared for anything at anytime. That fish came out of 90 feet of water just off the edge of the reef.

Once that full moon shines in the sky the mangrove snapper bite is going to pretty much turn off, so get on out there and catch ‘em while you can!!!

Capt. Brian

August 4, 2008

The night bite is on!!! Out of the last 11 nights of fishing we (Capt. Michael Party Boat) have limited out on mangrove snappers 9 times! One of the two nights that we didn't we still had over 100 fish in the box. We are catching the fish on every kind of bait you can name. They are being caught on the bottom, on the top of the water, and suspended. If you are fishing where the fish are, it doesn't matter what you use for bait or how you fish it.

I'd say the biggest fish we caught this week was about 6 pounds, while we had a few more over 5. In Islamorada the average size mangrove is about 2 pounds during the spawn. There are certainly bigger fish out there, and there are ways to target the bigger ones, but for the style of fishing that we do on the “Michael” it's the quantity that we target, not so much the size. It's our goal to catch as many fish as possible for every customer on board. Basically I'd rather catch 180 one to three pounders than 40 four to five pounders. The beauty of it though is that you can still come out and target the bigger fish if you wish to do so. The 6 and 7 pound fish are right there in the same spawning grounds as the little guys, you just need to fish baits that the little ones can't eat. Live pilchards are great for the big boys, while a live goggle-eye ensures no small fish, but if you fish with a live “gog” don't get frustrated if you fish all night and get one bite while the guy standing next to you catches 25 fish on dead baits.

One of our hottest anglers this week was Nat Gross from Miami. Nat is a regular customer of the Sea Legs party boat in Hollywood, Fl but he comes down to fish out of Robbie's once a week or so. He came down with daughter for three nights this past week and they filled their snapper bag limit all three nights! Great work Nat! Speaking of bag limits, that's a hot topic right now. It's so easy to catch your 5 mangroves, that I get customers inquiring about what to do when they reach their limit and we still have 2 hours of fishing to do. The way it works in Florida is when on the water the fish caught essentially belong to the captain of the boat. He or she is allowed 5 mangroves per person on the boat. It doesn't matter who caught what, so long as the boat is within it's limit. Once the boat has docked the fish are still in the possession of the skipper. Once you have taken the fish 300 feet away from the vessel, they now belong to you. That means that if you go out on a party boat and catch 20 mangrove snappers you are completely legal. Even if the Marine Patrol boards the boat you are fine. However, once you put all those fish in your car and drive away you are completely responsible for your actions. If you get stopped and the officer decides to search your cooler you are now 15 fish over your legal limit. Notifying the officer that you caught them on a party boat and they didn't tell you to stop fishing because you caught 5 already will do you no good. Once 300 feet from the boat, they are all yours. Some remedies to this problem are to give your extra fish away to other customers who weren't so lucky that night, or to just stop fishing once you've gotten your limit. I'm no law enforcement official, so it's not my place to tell you what to do, but in my opinion once you've caught your limit you should respect the fact that you have had a great night and help another customer have one just as good.

The daytime mangrove bite has gotten much slower as of late. We are still catching a few fish, but it's no where near what it was a couple of weeks ago. I'd say we did better when targeting yellowtails this week than anything else while the sun was up. One blessing for you yellowtail fisherman is that the commercial boats won't be out there every day anymore catching 1500 pounds of ‘tails at a time because lobster season is open. They'll be spending the majority of their time pulling traps, rather than out chumming you at your favorite yellowtail holes. When two boats are fishing a school of yellowtails the boat with the most chum wins. Most recreational or charter fisherman can't compete with a commercial boat hanging 80 pounds of chum off the back of his boat at a time.

I haven't targeted muttons or groupers in a while, so I really can't give you much of a report on them. I did see the Islamorada Lady II come in with a mutton in the 10 pound range on Sunday. Mangroves, yellowtails and cero mackerels accompanied it.

The spawn is half over, if you haven't gotten out there yet you'd better hurry!

Capt. Brian

July 28, 2008

If you read last week's report everything has completely flip-flopped from then. It's mainly due to the moon darkening and the mangroves getting into full spawn mode. The fish seemed to have stopped eating so much in the daytime, although they are still present on all of the spots that we were catching them during the full moon phase. When we fished those areas this week the fish would show up in the chum slick, but they just aren't as willing to bite as they were just a few days ago.

However, the night bite has gotten as hot as it possibly can!!! The fish are starting to bite well at about 10:00pm or a bit later, and they are eating anything you throw in the water. If you are in the right area you'll find the pilchards cloud into the chum slick, and not long after they have been there the mangroves are right on the surface eating some chum, but their main interest is the pilchards. Hence, you want to have a sabiki rig or cast net because you will catch the biggest mangroves on the live pilchards. When you can see the fish on the surface after dark, there is certainly no need for any weight, what so ever. I always like to say “put your bait where the fish are”, and when they are on the top, it's silly to plummet your bait thru them to the bottom. These fish are going to eat pretty much anything, so my recommendation is to use the cheapest bait available, such as thread herring, squid, mullet or better yet, catch your own free pilchards. For the cost of a $0.99 sabiki rig you can fish all night long and never buy bait. When I tell people this they ask me what if the pilchards aren't there… The answer to that is that if they aren't there, you aren't in the right spot.

On the Capt. Michael we caught our limit of mangroves Thursday, Saturday and Sunday nights for sure, while Friday was close. This tells you that the fish are really biting, because due to the popularity of the night bite we have been having a fair number of people on board. It's not that impressive to limit out with 15 people, but when you have 45 on board you know the fishin's good when you limit out.

Getting away from the grovers, the daytime yellowtail bite has been pretty good as well. I have been the most successful in the 40 to 45ft. range lately. The water has been clear, but it hasn't seemed to suppress the bite that badly. The fish are showing up in the slick and actively feeding for quite a long time. I've seen commercial fishing boats out almost every day for the last couple of weeks, and they definitely don't fish if the ‘tails aren't biting. When I visited Islamorada Fish Company this week to see what was being brought in I saw mainly yellowtails and mangroves, along with some dolphin and deep-water fish such as tile fish and barrel fish. I'd have to say 70% of what they had was reef snappers.

One fun surprise I had this week was to see two different sailfish free-jumping just off the edge of the reef. One was in about 120 feet while the other one was just outside of the Eagle wreck in 115 feet a couple of days later. There was a very strong current edge in that depth range the two days I saw the fish, I would presume that they were patrolling that for bait fish when decided to knock of a few parasites by coming clear out of the water and landing horizontally as to get rid of remoras and any other small creatures who were using the fish for a free ride. It's quite common to see this, and usually the fish aren't in a mood to eat when they are doing it, but it never hurts to throw a bait at ‘em.

This awesome snapper bite is only going to last for a few more weeks, so take advantage of it while it's there!

Capt. Brian

July 20, 2008

Holy Smokes!!! What a fabulous week! Things in the earlier days of the week were kind of normal, but by the weekend we started having some of the best snapper fishing I've ever seen in the Keys! The mangrove snappers have been biting better than I've ever seen in the daytime. This bite started Thursday and is still happening as I type this report on Monday evening. It's completely expected for the night bite to be great this time of year, but the day time is absolutely insane right now compared to years past. Last year we had a lot of days where the “grovers” bit well, but this year is 5 times better than last. On Sunday morning I had customers not even letting line off of their reels to catch the fish. They were chewing on the chum bags hanging from the boat and if you put your bait next to the bag you could just “cane pole” them over the rail. We had our limit of 5 per fisherman by 10:30 that morning. After that we went in search of yellowtails and mutton snappers. We were able to come up with a few tails and a nice barracuda that actually eaten the only mutton snapper we had hooked up. He paid the price for eating a beautiful mutton!

The mangroves are eating anything you use for bait right now. If you are going out in search of them I recommend using any kind of cut bait including but not limited to ballyhoo, mullet and bonita. Don't bother fishing deeper than 40 feet of water. So often people have the mind set that the deeper you fish the bigger the fish will be. Depth however has little to do with fish size. For instance, look at the 200 pound tarpon you see swimming in marinas. Those fish are far bigger than anything you target on the reef and they live in 3 feet of water. Plus, the mangroves simply are not stacking up in the deeper water this time of year. On the contrary, if you don't know anywhere to go in search of them, I suggest looking at a chart and finding the shallowest spot you can find near the reef and start there. The grovers are staging there for a number of reasons. Water temperature and available food are two of about 20 I can think of off the top of my head.

It's fun to see the different fish that we catch over the coarse of the day during this amazing mangrove spawn. You can actually identify where each fish came from by how it's colored. Mangroves live in all depths of water during the year and they take on a different look depending on where they live. In June, July and August they all congregate on the reef to spawn, but they keep their signature colors which tell where they reside. When you catch a fish that is light in color with a very dark tail and has a dark bar running through it's eye you know that it migrated from the bay or back country. When you catch one that is a deep red in color it was a deep water resident (I've caught them as deep as 245 feet in the winter). And a reef resident has no bar through the eye and is a dark grey or even a bronze color. These are all the same species, regardless of colorings or markings.

Ok, enough about mangroves for a bit. The yellowtail bite has actually been trailing off for me. I've heard reports of other captains still catching them quite well, but for me they have slowed down. On the contrary, at night Capt. Ron on the Capt. Michael has been catching big ‘tails by the barrel full. He is catching them primarily on wrecks in 70 to 100 feet of water using all the normal techniques. I'm sure you can find the fish in greater numbers but smaller size on the reef and patches, but Capt. Ron likes the big flags.

Barracudas are another common fish on the reef right now. They are a great fight, a fantastic mount or picture and a memory of a lifetime. You almost have to use a wire leader when targeting them and a live bait is usually the trick on the reef. Inshore flies and tube lures are successful but out where we fish I recommend enticing these toothy critters with one of the fish in your chum slick. If you don't plan on mounting the fish or eating it (not recommended due to ciguatera poison) please don't bother killing them. On the Capt. Michael we only kill them if the customer is interested in mounting the fish for a trophy. If you plan on taking photos and releasing the fish just remember that of all the fish with teeth that can hurt you this is one of the most dangerous. You need to steer as far clear of the razor sharp teeth.

One fish that has been pretty much absent lately is the grouper. We've only caught 2 keeper fish in the last month or so (barring graysbies, rock hinds and such). This time of year these fish are very inactive and spread out. They prefer colder water than what we have on the reef right now. They aren't a big fan of the Key's bathwater in the summer. This isn't to say that you can't catch them, but I wouldn't spend as much time targeting them as I would muttons if you are looking for a big, drag pulling bottom fish.

I would expect this hot snapper bite to carry on for the next three weeks, so you if you are ever going to get out there when the fishing is as good as it gets, this is the time. You've got a few weeks, so pick a nice day and get out there!

Capt. Brian

Snapper, Snapper, Snapper!!! The mangroves have started their heavy spawn period, while the yellowtails are still abundant and you can certainly find muttons if you work at it. Tuesday was the first night that the mangrove bite was really red hot. After that the numbers of fish have decreased a bit, but I believe they are biting late in the night right now and our boat stops fishing at 11:30pm. As the summer goes on this will rectify itself and the bite will become earlier and earlier. The pilchards are abundant from sun down to sun up where the mangroves are spawning, so you never have a shortage of live and fresh bait. That's not to say the pilchards are always the best bait, but they are usually darn close to it, if not the best. You will find that the small mangroves will come right up to the chum bag and eat the chum, but the bigger fish are hanging back a bit eating pilchards. On a calm, quiet night you will be able to hear them snapping the baits off of the surface while you are fishing. Ballyhoo plugs, thread herring, mullet and pretty much anything else will get eaten, but a live pilchard fished with no weight on a 15 pound spinner is an angler's dream when the mangroves are spawning.

Something extremely important to keep in mind about these hot summer nights is that the mangrove limit is only 5 fish per angler. This fits into ten per person aggregate snapper limit, meaning that you can catch 10 snappers, but only 5 of them can be grovers. Many sportsmen are starting to put the limit in the box then catch and release for fun. That's great, but if you are gut hooking them and throwing them back you are defeating the purpose of the limit. The bag limit is in place to limit the number of fish killed. If you are going to fish for sport please use a circle hook, a hook with no barb, a huge hook that they can't swallow or a combination there of.

The muttons are being caught right now off of wrecks in up to 260 feet. All the normal baits are hot, ballyhoo, pinfish, flying fish, mullet, bonita strips, etc. I really can't tell you much more, as the muttons are much more structure specific than most of the other snappers. You basically need to know where they are going to be in order to find them. This takes a good friend with the willingness to share the coordinates or a lot of time on the water with your eyes glued to your bottom machine. Research can lead you to deep structure as well, but chances are that if you found it that way so did your neighbor. One thing the Keys are definitely lacking is an abundance of deep-water structure. Most other counties in the state have a government that is pro-artificial reef, but due to our fragile living reef we rarely see man-made structures legally sank in our waters.

On Monday we had some top notch vermillion snapper fishing this week as well. Fishing in 164 feet outside of Islamorada we came across a school of vermies that averaged 2.5 pounds in size and they were coming up two at a time on the bottom rigs. This is the kind of fishing that is perfect for a party boat. Everyone on board goes home with a great memory of action packed fishing as well as a superb dinner. We went back to the same area a few times later in the week but the fish had moved on already. These weren't resident fish, they were on the move and we just happened upon them at the perfect time.

One snapper that most people never even think about is the cubera. They are set to spawn on this next full moon. Forget catching a 30 pound mutton, the cubera is the real trophy snapper. The Florida record is 116 pounds! The largest I've partaken in was 48 pounds, and I'm hear to tell you that they have the teeth and attitude of a Doberman Pinshcer on steroids! I've never seen a snapper in the hundred pound range, but if it's like that 48 pounder only doubled, I'd be scared! Their food of choice is a live lobster, but I've seen them eat ballyhoo, yellowtails, blue runners, crabs, pinfish, grunts and mangrove snappers. Basically they'll eat anything you put in front of them if presented properly, but a live lobster is the top choice.

Remember to check the weather radar before going night fishing this time of year, as squalls pass through all the time.

Capt. Brian (Click Here For Bio)