Welcome February. What a busy month we are into now. I guess we should close out January first.
I think we had a month of January. At least it was cold for a couple days. This warm weather has the fish and me so confused. Tarpon action that we see at Thanksgiving took place at Christmas this year. And then the Haulover run of tarpon that normally happens at Christmas took place the end of February. The water along the beach is 74 degrees instead of the normal 70 degrees we see in early February.
All that being said, we did have some good days of fishing. The year started off cold with big jacks in the inlet and big bonitos along the edge. Sandy Blade had the first super trip of the year. She caught 2 sailfish, 2 barracuda, 2 bluefish, a small mutton snapper, a small red grouper, a 13 pound king mackerel, 2 dolphin, a 9 pound jack crevalle and a 90 pound tarpon in 8 hours of fishing. Now that is one busy angler. If you look close, there is a "Gold Coast Grand Slam" mixed in with all those fish.
On the 10th we had a nice couple catch 5 schoolie dolphin, a 23 pound cow dolphin, a 19 pound gray grouper and a 33 pound black grouper on a flat calm day.
On The 17th it was extremely rough for Jeff and Lana Barrett and their friends Mike and Harry. They had very little time to notice the rough water as they caught 4 sailfish, 2 dolphin, a barracuda, a shark, 4 small jacks, 2 bonnet head sharks and 2 tarpon. Jeff scored a 'Gold Coast Grand Slam".
On the 20th the Della Monica guys took on the wind and rain to catch 3 nice mangrove snapper, a spanish mackerel and 2 tarpon on a rain shortened morning of action.
On the 24 th we had the honor of taking Captain Matt Tambor of "The Bite" TV show fishing for a daytime swordfish. He battled to hand crank a 180 pound beauty up from 2000 feet. The war took 3 hours of hard work.
On the 28th Hank Dinardo caught a king, a dolphin, a sailfish, an 18 pound black grouper and a huge 7 pound scamp grouper.
The 29th professional yacht mate Leah caught a big barracuda and her friend Simon from Sweden caught a very big sailfish.
February 2nd 10 year old Lianna caught and released a 50 pound sailfish while her dad Mario was busy doing the same. They added a couple kings and assorted bottom fish to fill the day.
Want to know what I do on a real day off? I went fishing with my sister Sue on February 3rd. We went to Marathon and fished with my friend Jack Callion. We wanted light tackle action and we found it. Jack and sue fished with shrimp tipped jigs and I beat the water with a fly rod.
The first hour was a little slow, with maybe 5 or 6 fish between the three of us. Then the tide and chum went to work. We caught and released fish on nearly every cast for a couple hours. We had dozens of spanish mackerel to 4 or 5 pounds, half a dozen bluefish around 4 pounds each, a couple ladyfish, jacks, a trout, a couple gaff top sail catfish, a small goliath grouper and a couple mangrove snappers. Sue even caught a 4 pound mackerel on fly. We drove home with very sore arms and happy memories.
Family Fun
We are off and running into February. We have the big boat show next week. I will be at the Dusky Booth Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th. I will be in the Big Game Room of the Boat Show talking fishing at noon both days. We will be in the Big Game Room Thursday the 14th around 6 PM. We will be at The Billfish Foundation party at The Miami Beach Rod and Reel Club the evening of the 15th. And the rest of the month we will be out there catching fish.
Mark your calendar for March. I will be teaching Kite Fishing at the IGFA on March 4th and Wreck Fishing on the 18th. I will be at Bass Pro Shop in Dania on the 7th talking bottom fishing. On March 19th I will be at Dusky Sport Center talking about the Spring Big Dolphin Action. This will be about how to score with big dolphin. Give them a call at 954-922-8890 for any details.
It is prime time for sailfish, grouper and tarpon. If the weather is good it is tops for swordfish as well. Get out there and catch those fish. Enjoy the fish and share that joy with a new or young angler. Call me at 305-439-2475 or e-mail me at captbouncer@bellsouth.net if I can help.
