July has been pretty busy so far with a variety of trips both during the day and evening. Surprisingly, there are still some tarpon hanging around off Miami Beach and around Miami's Government Cut. Snook are also being caught around the jetties on live bait. Offshore the mahi are still around in good numbers with some decent gaffers mixed in. On the reefs and artificial wrecks we are catching grouper, yellowtail, and mangrove snapper. The night bottom fishing has been red hot especially for the mangroves after dark. Here is a breakdown of some recent catches.
Honeymooners Nick and Sally were visiting from Australia and both excellent anglers. The duo teamed up to catch and released 3 sharks, 2 of which were hammerheads in the 150-250 pound range. Sally caught her hammerhead on a 20 pound spinning rod (great job Sally!). Nick caught the larger shark on the bottom rod after the fish ate a live goggle eye. Later in the day Nick caught and released his first Atlantic sailfish. The sail was caught despite poor water conditions. We had dirty green water and no current but apparently luck was on our side. Later in the day we caught a warsaw grouper while fishing some deeper numbers. Overall, we had a great time despite the warm weather. You can watch video taken of one of the sharks by just following this link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbyJaI9SMQU&list=UU3XET8xNkoAk6twBxSFJ-Rw
On our next outing we had repeat clients Al, his son Dom and their cousin Effrain. Effrain had zero fishing experience so he was forced to learn fast and after loosing numerous fish he started to figure things out. We headed out in the late afternoon loaded with plenty of chum, and bait both live and frozen. After finding a fishy looking ledge in an area that has produced for me in the past I set the anchor and started chumming. On the very first bait that hit the water we caught a really nice yellowtail snapper. We continued to ad yellowtails to the box until the mangroves showed up in the chum. You could actually see the fish darting around the chum and feeding aggressively. In no time at all we caught are limit and were headed back to the dock with a nice haul. Now the guys can't wait to do it again.
Ken and Jeff were down here from the Northeast and wanted to get in some fishing in between their work. We were fishing a short day so the decision was made to fish the reefs and wrecks and make the best of it. The good news is that we had non-stop action during the entire trip but apparently Murphy's Law got the best of us on this trip. Part of the problem we were having was that large sharks kept taking our baits only we weren't shark fishing. I'm pretty sure that some of our cut-offs were a result of sharks. We also experience some pulled hooks and fish that beat us to the wreck. Late in the day we were finally able to get the skunk off the boat when a beautiful gaffer dolphin ate our flatline. The mahi now has a one way ticket to NJ.
On my last trip we had a couple of little ones on the boat and we just wanted them to have fun catching grunts, jacks, and small mangrove snapper. Plenty of fish were caught and now these kids are hooked. I really enjoy these trips because young ones are the future of our sport. I look forward to fishing with them again. Maybe next time we'll be targeting sailfish.
Wednesday, July 30 and 31st kicks off the mini-lobster season and as usual you can expect a lot of people and boats out on the water. Please be sure to be safe out on the water and keep a sharp our for divers and dive flags. Hopefully, it will be a great year and there won't be any serious accidents reported.
We'll that's pretty much it for right now. I have several trips coming up that I hope will be as good as the last few. Don't forget that you can keep up with all of the action by following us on FACEBOOK, Instagram, and Twitter. If you like watching some of the action, be sure to check out my YOUTUBE page for the latest video additions.
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786-266-0171