The 'outstanding'40foot Custom Express 'Last Mango' out pf Ft Pierce City Marina put together a few 'great' days of fishing this week with excellent catches of 'mahi'on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. Monday was the highlight of our charters with a tally of 35 dolphin (we released 15 of them, all keepers)and miscellaneous catches of kings and cudas.
The ideal combination of tide, temp, color change and seaweed all came together late morning a little southeast of Ft. Pierce off the power plant in 140 feet of water. Tide and currant pushed two 'edges' together and the dolphin were some kind of thick!
We caught and released dolphin until it became apparent that it was probably time to hunt for 'the elusuive sailfish' even though the sail bite has been slow east of the inlet. Our anglers were thrilled with the catch and happy to enjoy the calm seas and some uneventful trolling for a while.
Would you believe...the conditions had changed the following day and Tuesday the 24th was more of a challenge. After going through 3 dozen ballyhoo and feeding way too many cudas as we trolled north, we found better conditions up off of Vero and caught our share of dolphin releasing more than we kept. Eight gaffers in the 8-10 lb range was enough meat for our anglers.
Sad to say we pulled the hook on a 20-25 lb blackfin right beside the boat. After a 20 min battle we were all a bit disappointed.
Happy Turkey Day to all and cheers! Capt Tris