Springtime has progressed to the hot weather of summer. Along with this change comes changes in the fishing. With a few changes in techniques, the action will continue to keep fish pulling on the line and anglers smiling.
Offshore, the search for dolphin becomes a matter of covering more ground and sometimes traveling further offshore. In on the reef, the downrigger and bottom outfits will start producing better than the flat lines on most days. You can expect action with kingfish, AJ's, and muttons on the bottom rig. Bonito become the predominant fish and will leave many anglers with sore arms and backs.
Inshore, the tarpon action out along the beach has slowed down. The good news, however, is that they are in the Bay and feeding with a vengeance.
With all that said, let's get caught up again with the individual trips aboard Knot Nancy.
Alex and his friends caught dolphin offshore before motion sickness took over and we had to run back in to calmer water. The fish were under birds and around floating debris. The next evening, the same group caught tarpon at Government Cut on the south side using crabs.
James, Mark, and Sharon Banta picked a beautiful weather day for their dolphin trip. Searching was the name of the game and changing techniques produced once we found the fish. The schools were small and didn't want to stick around to long before moving on. At one point it took switching to trolling small lures to get them going. James got to catch a few fish on his fly rod much to his delight. On the way in we found a very good weed line and that's where we found a larger school of fish that stayed around longer. A fish fry with dolphin fillets was the plan for that evening.
Sherman Gambill and Andy Sun took good advantage of the afternoon/evening trip that I offer. We had to work hard to fill the livewell with bait, but it got accomplished after three bait spots were visited. Within minutes of putting out the first baits and slow trolling, we had action with bonito that kept both anglers busy. Once we made it out to the depth I wanted to start in, a drift was set up. The flatlines saw first action in the form of dolphin in 180'. Andy got the 18 pound fish and Sherman caught the schoolie. The bottom rod saw action with a mutton snapper. The wind finally picked up enough to fly the ex-light kite which produced a barracuda for Andy and Sherman's first sailfish. We capped off the trip with tarpon action at Government Cut with Sherman catching his first tarpon.
The next trip to Government had Aaron Demers catching and releasing a permit and Jeff Demers catching his first tarpon. In the Bay, we jumped one tarpon before calling it an evening,
Richard Chase and his grandson Rick fished a late afternoon trip that started slow and picked up speed as the trip progressed. We started straight out from Government Cut with the action being slow. When the north current pushed us to the middle of the Anchorage area, things changed quickly. Slow trolling herring in 90-120 feet gave us steady action with kingfish on the flatlines. When that action slowed, we moved out to 180 feet and as soon as I set Knot Nancy into a drift, the downrigger popped and the kingfish action picked back up again. Meanwhile, the flatlines also got hit and both Richard and Rick were very busy with bent rods and line screaming off their reels. Besides the kingfish, the bonito also got in on the action too.
The last evening trip made to Government Cut for tarpon was with Robert Oldin and his friend Mike. Neither had caught a tarpon and were eager to do battle with one. The action along the beach was non-existent. After the tide changed and it got dark, we moved into the Bay and things changed quickly. After setting up and putting out the baits, it only took about 5 minutes for the craziness to start. The tarpon pulled hard, jumped a lot, and had the anglers running around the boat. When it was time to head back to TNT Marine Center, the final score was 4 for 4 with two very amazed and happy anglers.
Knot Nancy is currently at Birdsall Marine getting a new upholstery make over. My next scheduled trip is on July 18. In the meantime, call or email to get your trip scheduled to take advantage of the good Bay tarpon and reef action.
Captain Dave Kostyo
Knot Nancy Fishing Charters, Inc
305-965-9454
www.knotnancy.com
nkostyo@bellsouth.net