I was lucky enought to fish with Mark and Lori again aboard their boat, providing full instruction and a half day of sport fishing.
I really wanted to Mark on his first sailfish and although he wanted to put fish in the cooler all while learning, it was my goal to do it all! That's the beauty of South Florida fishing, especially using live bait.
We started the day with live bait and watching the ballyhoo showers on the reef. I didn't want to spend to much time getting bait as I wanted to beat the weekend fleet to the reef and get lines in the water as early as possible.
With an offshore drift, we started in about 120 feet. I put the boat in neutral and was happy to see about 1.5 knot of south current. The previous day, we had zero. Current makes all the difference.
By the time I got all the lines out we were in about 140 feet and I could tell we were going to go bit. The baits were looking nervous and the water looked right. Flying fish going air born, birds pecking away athe various weed patches and cobalt blue water.
As we drifted to around 180 feet, we immediately had a rod go off and we put a nice kingfish in the box. Lori did a great job on the rod.
I re-rigged that rod quickly and just as I set it in the rod holder, the flat line clip went off and we had a sailfish jumping right at the boat. Mark got into the fight and did a great job on the battle for about 30 minutes. We got the fish boat side for a quick picture and healthy release.
The sailfish was absolutely epic in the display of acrobatics.
Back at the dock, we steaked up the kingfish and the couple were back on their way home with a cooler of fresh mahi and fresh kingfish.
Truely a great time on the water with great people.
Tight Lines,
Captain Mike
