March 29, 2020
By Florida Sportsman
Recent offshore fishing reports from the Florida Keys region.
Secrets of the Sport
Florida Sportsman member: various
As usual, fishing in the Keys proves to be productive. Tuna, mahi and wahoo can be found when trolling. Kings and snapper have been plentiful as well. JCameronRSleep even reveals his secret for catching big fish when dropping. Check out the latest reports from offshore for all the details.
Click here to see JCameronRSleep's report.
Click here to see Cdrifter's wahoo report.
Click here to see islandhopper's trolling report.
Click here to see piner_wahoo1's tuna report.
Click here to see piner_wahoo1's king report.
Click here to see SkippyD's reef report.
Reef Reports
Florida Sportsman member: CaptJ
The boat has a tank of gas, the freezer is stocked with chum, and I'm fishing solo. I got out yesterday afternoon and drummed up a few fish for the next few days of dinner, lunch, etc. Smoked fish spread, snapper tropical, coconut fried snapper, and fried snapper fingers all made their way onto the menu. Life carries on in the Keys. These ones were caught in 85' and on a decent east current.
Click here to see the 3/19 report.
Click here to see the 3/12 report.
Latest Offshore from the Keys
Florida Sportsman member: fixedrate & CaptJ
I got out to the reef yesterday and it was a bit sporty. There were no bites in 70', so we went to the patches in 25' and had some fun. The fishing was not red hot, but we caught a few red grouper, mangrove snapper, yellowtails, missed a few cero mackerel and caught a nice black grouper. Of course, it was flat calm today which Windfinder and NOAA completely missed on. We went bar hopping with great success.
Click here to see fixedrate's report.
Click here to see CaptJ's report that's quoted above.
Wild Winds in the Keys
Florida Sportsman member: JCameronRSleep & CaptJ
Expect the unexpected, at least when dealing with the weather. Capt Greg loaded us on the Yankee Capts six hours early, in order to get us out fishing for the longest time possible before an approaching front rolled through. All of us applauded the plan and I personally thought we would be headed home full, long before the weather made it uncomfortable. Well, that was not to be so. We fished from 10:00 PM till about 7:00 PM, sometimes with very good results, then mother nature sent us packing, without the sea anchor.
Click here to see JCameronRSleep's report that's quoted above.
Click here to see CaptJ's wahoo report.
Ten Days in Islamorada
Florida Sportsman member: Smeagal
We started off most mornings catching bait and fishing the reef, where we had muttons from short to 30 inches. We threw back probably a dozen would-be keeper blacks from barley legal to roughly 15 pounds. Finally, we got the right conditions and pushed off to the deep, looking for some gold. We had four to five hours of prospecting and fishing time before the conditions weren't going to be conducive any longer. This bigger golden was a line short of 40 pounds.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Madness of Muttons
Florida Sportsman member: JCameronRSleep
Others were losing fish to the predators or hooking beasts, unusual for this turf. I raised a huge nurse shark to the surface and a few minutes later, after releasing him, finally my giant grouper rocked me up on bottom. I got him free and fought him to the daylight, only to discover it was another nurse shark, looking suspiciously like the one we just released. Ouch! Then several of my baits and hooks met jaws, as others landed muttons and groupers.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Summerland Mix
Florida Sportsman member: islandhopper
I've got some friends in town, so we decided to make a trip out. We fished the reef edge from 40-70' and caught several keeper yellowtail. I think we also broke off from a few sharks. We made it out another day and fished Cudjoe Channel where we managed some small grouper and mutton's. We plan to give it another go tomorrow.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Fun Last Days of the Year
Florida Sportsman member: latitudeajustment & AOKRVs
latitudeajustment: It was tough fishing, but we managed a few 20-21 inch black grouper and threw back a smaller strawberry, so we were thankful we got a keeper red the day before. We had a good day, but it was a ton of effort to land a half dozen snapper and this nice king mackerel for the smoker.
AOKRVs: Over the last few days, I made it out on the reef for some final grouper fishing. We caught several reds that were vented and released. We had a couple of first time grouper catches. We also picked up some yellowtails, porgies and mangrove snappers.
Click here to see latitudeajustment's 12/30 forum report.
Click here to see latitudeajustment's 12/31 forum report.
Click here to see AOKRVs's late December report.
Marathon Tuna and Mahi Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: AOKRVs
We arrived to little current and no birds or weeds. We put out the spread and we were getting tunas one at a time. We had a lot of hook ups with five minute shark fights, but did manage to get a couple footballs and one seven pounder on ice. Now for the search for mahi, so I turned to the south. A couple miles past the hump we came upon some weed patches that had sargassum and debris mixed in. Not long into troll, we are on. Father and son teamwork on the reel, then quick work with gaff and we got a mahi in the box.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Key West Offshore, Wrecks and Reefs
Florida Sportsman member: jfish8
The offshore bite was okay before the wind picked up the last couple days, but haven't heard much going on out there. A few wahoo here and there from the moon. There was some blackfin activity on the 250' drop earlier in the morning. Dolphin are very hit or miss. The reef bite has finally turned back on strong, and the deeper wrecks are providing plenty of activity.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Full Moon Reef Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
Finally, this moon sparked the mutton bite and the mahi are starting to chase the bait sprays. Here's what it looks like for the last week including yesterday's trip out of Taverneir.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Click here to see the miami mutton's previous reef report from 9/15.
Tuna and Dolphin in the Keys
Florida Sportsman member: jfish8
We found some good 15 to 20 pound blackfins crashing baits under birds in 850, but lost both we hooked. It was quiet for another hour, until we found another group right on the wall. We caught one football sized fish and the birds disappeared. We made the "Hail Mary" move to run out past the wall, about six miles, but it only got seemingly more lifeless. As we curved back in, we noticed a small group of birds working in some scattered grass. As we approached, we could see a large wake, either a billfish or big dolphin. We made one pass, hooked a nice bull, and called it a day,
Click here to see the full forum report.
King of Queens
Florida Sportsman member: Snaphappy
Looking to hit the reef in the Keys? Check out these reports for some recent successes. Snapper has mainly been on the plate, but a few grouper and some peanut mahi have also found their way to the hook.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Key West Dolphin
Florida Sportsman member: jfish8
There was a fantastic weedline in 700', just about a mile south of the 650' drop. It was easy pickings on all the legal sized or better fish you wanted. The best fish of the day came off of frigates working larger patches, trolling with skirted ballyhoo. We picked off a few better fish from the schools with live pinfish that were too big for the smaller schoolies to inhale and the bigger fish would fight their way through and wolf them down. We kept three for dinner and let dozens more go. Honestly, it was some of the easiest dolphin fishing I've seen all summer.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Islamorada Mutton Success
Florida Sportsman member: Oakview
I have been trying for years to catch some big mutton. Finally got a few.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Fishing Sugarloaf
Florida Sportsman member: bone
We fished three days this week in two to four foot seas, but otherwise, it was nice weather. Snapper, mahi, tiles, and tuna were all biting. Mangrove snapper were best at night and yellowtail during day. The mahi could be found at 200' and 750'. There was too much weed to troll.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Monster Fish Extravaganza
Florida Sportsman member: cudaman
What can I say, this is another one for the books. We have been doing this trip for the past five years and it never disappoints. Vertical jigging as a whole always works. Long fall jigging, slow jigging, slow pitch jigging or speed jigging, vertical jigging has always worked from the very first trip. If you haven't tried any of these, I suggest you do.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Reef Rundown
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
The fish are biting great on the reef. Yellowtail, mangrove snapper, muttons and some nice grouper too. The current has been ripping, making it harder for the anglers to catch the fish and the weeds on the reef are out of control, just like the sharks are.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Pending from Pulley Ridge
Florida Sportsman member: AMPED
A great trip to Pulley Ridge resulted in Ronnie Talsa's black grouper pending a world record on its test, weighing in at 74.5 pounds!
Click here to see the full forum report.
Hitting the Reefs
Florida Sportsman member: latitudeajustment & xenia
Looking to hit the reef in the Keys? Check out these reports for some recent successes. Snapper has mainly been on the plate, but a few grouper and some peanut mahi have also found their way to the hook.
Click here to see latitudeajustment's Big Pine Key report.
Click here to see xenia's Ocean Reef report.
Time for Tiles
Florida Sportsman member: latitudeajustment & piner_wahoo
Mahi, tilefish and snapper, it doesn't get much better than that. Check out some recent reports from the Keys with some savory eats.
Click here to see latitudeajustment's forum report.
Click here to see piner_wahoo's forum report.
Reef Fishing Tavernier
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
The rough conditions were no match for a 30 foot brand new Contender and three determined fisherman. Even with slow current, I was able to get them on a good bite.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Mutton Madness
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
Great fishing! Tons of mutton, all caught on ballyhoo. We hit the bait spot as planned and headed for the deep fished spots in 180' and 140' deep. We got all the fish in those two spots with slow current and flat seas.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Grouper and Snapper on the Menu
Florida Sportsman member: CaptJ & miami mutton
Some quality sized grouper and snapper have been reported in the Keys since the opening last week.
Click here to see CaptJ's forum report.
Click here to see miami mutton's forum report.
Reef Bites
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
The fishing has been decent lately on the reefs, with a variety of grouper and snapper being caught regularly.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Two for One Special
Florida Sportsman member: cameron sleep & benwah22
Mid-trip there was hollering from mid-ship, as a jigger lander a catch of two almaco jacks on one jig. Toward the end of the trip, at the stern, a real commotion arose, when a hard fight yielded another double header! Only this time it was a keeper mutton snapper on the bottom hook and a thirty pound black grouper on the top hook. All we can figure, is that the mutton bit first, then the grouper got hooked trying to eat the mutton. Overall, a very good trip! The big fish of the trip was a 50 pound black grouper. There were lots of muttons, lots of groupers, tuna, porgies, margates and many other species. I was lucky enough to limit on muttons and nearly on groupers, including a 22 pound black.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Marathon Mahi and Shark
Florida Sportsman member: AOKRVs
We start our first pass at the humps, with feathers way back and in no time the left rod is screaming. We got other lines cleared and turn to chase, since we already lost half the spool. After getting some of the line back and we start using the drag to tire the fish. This is a big fish and at first I thought it was a shark but after one hour of fighting and not getting cut-off, there was the chance it might be a big yellowfin. Two hours into the fight and we finally are making some ground getting down to the last 100 yards. Slowly gaining line and finally color. It was a shark, but it was a 10' fish for someone who has only caught bluegills and catfish. With some sore arms, we make a change and head out to look for some weedlines. We stop at a scattered line with a bird working. We put out a couple feathers, a ballyhoo and a jet head on wire. It doesn't take long and we have one on, a nice gaffer mahi. We work this line and a couple others in about 1000' and catch several mahi and one blackfin tuna. We keep five mahi and one blackfin. If was a great day of catching for some newbies to saltwater.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Islamorada Blackfin and Dolphin
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
We've had some pretty good offshore fishing in the Islamorada area the last few weeks. Every day has been a little different, but for the most part dolphin fishing has been pretty good most days with a lot of large fish for this time of year. We've had several days with slammers including one fish that was 57 pounds. The tuna fishing was good, but inconsistent with plenty of sharks around for the first few weeks of September. But has come on strong lately with plenty of nice fish live bait chumming with pilchards and hardly any sharks on our last few trips.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Hot Bites in the Keys
Florida Sportsman member: Various
Reports of good fishing have been spilling in from the Keys for weeks. What's hot right now? Tiles, tiles and more tiles. This delicate white fish is being caught up by anglers on their deep dropping trips, with the occasional snowy grouper bycatch. As usual, snapper fishing is always a good plan as well, with tons of mutton, yellowtail, cubera and mangrove snapper being brought to the boat right now. A few straggler mahi are still to be found, although they have been reported out in deeper waters. If you're willing to travel that far out, might as well make the trip down to the Dry Tortugas for your holiday week, where the fishing has been on fire and the water is simply gorgeous.
Click here to see Make It Happen's Key Largo yellowtail report.
Click here to see piner_wahoo's grouper and tilefish report.
Click here to see Mahi_'s Marathon mahi report.
Click here to see piner_wahoo's big dolphin report.
Click here to see AOKRVs's Marathon tile report.
Click here to see Exoset's Cudjoe tilefish and grouper report.
Click here to see Make It Happen's Key Largo snapper and grouper report.
Click here to see triplejs's Tortugas snapper and grouper report.
Click here to see mtbrider85's Tortugas family trip report.
Keys Mixed Bags
Florida Sportsman member: piner_wahoo & seapro15
Tons of dolphin are still swarming around the keys. There are also tilefish, big grouper, and nice snapper catches to be made. Seapro15 got into a mess of blackfin tuna as well while at the humps. For more details, check out the reports below.
Click here to see seapro15's report.
Click here to see piner_wahoo's report.
Tilefish, Grouper and Mahi
Florida Sportsman member: anglerfan, piner_wahoo & AOKRVs
Lots of good eats are ready to be caught in the Keys. The dolphin are still around, but mostly schoolie sized. They have been replaced with the ever so delicious tilefish, which have been around Big Pine Key and hungry. Grouper have also been more than willing to bite a line, especially in Marathon. For more details, check out the reports below.
Click here to see anglerfan's tilefish report.
Click here to see piner_wahoo's tile and mahi report.
Click here to see AOKRV's mixed bag report.
Keys Action
Florida Sportsman member: Exoset & Tunachaser
Exoset kept it short and sweet: "Box full of dolphin and a sail release, another great day on the water. Get out there and enjoy the bounty! 600' with birds on the weedline."
Tunachaser: I took my older son and Poppa down to Islamorada for a few days of fishing and relaxing. We spent most of the trip on the reef and had steady action all three days with kings, yellowtails, spanish mackerel, etc. My son even got a small dolphin on a yellowtail jig in 65'. We were blessed with great weather and it was flat and calm all trip! We did make a run to the Hump too, but lots of scattered weeds and few birds made it tough. It was a great trip and was tons of fun!
Click here to see Exoset's dolphin and sailfish report.
Click here to see Tunachaser's Islamorada mixed bag report.
Big Bulls Around
Florida Sportsman member: damjeff
Forum member damjeff certainly hit the jackpot off the Keys. While he didn't share where he was fishing or what he was fishing with, he did share some action packed videos. One showing a double header with two big bulls, the other showing a large mass of schoolies beneath the boat. The fish are out there, you just gotta find em.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Great Keys Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: AOKRVs, CaptJ, Elemental, bone & Snaphappy
Some really great fishing has been reported all over the Keys. AOKRV reported an quick black grouper catch in the grouper ground off of Marathon, despite the rough waters. CaptJ fished some live bottom in 150' off Tavernier and caught the usual nice yellowtails and a few big muttons crashed the show. Elemental was trolling and shark fishing out of Key Colony Beach and managed a nice 25 pound dolphin and lots of blackfin close in, around 180'. Everything we caught was in 500' or less. He also managed to nearly land, a large male great white shark about six miles off of Sombrero beach in 210'. Meanwhile, bone fished three days last week off Cudjoe with light winds and on and off sprinkles. The tuna bite was great two of the three evenings. It was all bonito the last evening. There were no mahi to show on the troll, but we caught four drifting live bait. Snaphappy drifted and deep dropped Pulley Ridge and was rewarded with some beautiful, tasty eats. While on the trip grouper, tilefish, tuna and snapper were all reported in large numbers. The whole team left with a full box.
Click here to see AOKRVs's Marathon grouper report.
Click here to see CaptJ's Tavernier report.
Click here to see Elemental's Key Colony Beach report.
Click here to see bone's report.
Click here to see Snaphappy's report.
Hot Keys Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
We've had some spectacular fishing the last few weeks offshore of the Florida Keys aboard the Captain Easy out of Smugglers Marina in Islamorada. Offshore the dolphin action has been excellent with plenty of schoolies and gaffers on all of our offshore trips. A few really nice slammer bull dolphin in the 30 to 40 pound range as well. Just today, we managed to catch our limit of dolphin including several fish in the 10 to 15 pound range and one really nice bull pushing 40 pounds. Most of the action has been in anywhere from 400 to 800 feet of water. We're catching most of the fish casting live cigar minnows or pilchards on spinning tackle. On the reef, we caught some really nice black and gag grouper, as well as plenty of nice size yellowtail snapper.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Marathon Grouper
Florida Sportsman member: AOKRVs
Forum member AOKRVs got out a few times this week to target some open season grouper and troll for dolphin in between drops. While the haul wasn't as big as expected, there were some good eats to be found. After having a bit of success on the reefs, he found some weeds in 600' which yeilded a decent payoff with two mahi in the cooler. For the rest of the details, check out the reports below!
Click here to see the full 5/5 report.
Click here to see the 5/4 report.
Off the Keys
Florida Sportsman member: piner_wahoo & Hoogan
Big tuna and wahoo have been reported from the Keys fishing guru, forum member piner_wahoo, saying there was some chunky tuna in 250' willing to bite big artificals. The wahoo were found off of Big Pine Key. Forum member Hoogan decided to venture a big off the beaten path and fished the Dry Tortugas. The crew he was fishing with caught tons of different species all over the gulf. Check out the full report below.
Click here to see Hoogan's full forum report.
Click here to see piner_wahoo's tuna report.
Click here to see piner_wahoo's wahoo report.
Chumming for Flags
Florida Sportsman member: CaptJ
We had been fighting trash fish on the reef, so we decided to go a wreck in 240' off of Key Largo. The flags were there, along with the jacks, barracuda, and, of course, the man in the grey suit. We managed to actually chum the fish to the surface on a very slack tide and proceeded to do some damage. We ended up with 46 fish, none smaller than 20 inches and had a great time along the way. We had a couple of newbies with us and they were pretty excited with the action. It was a lot of fun for all of us.
Check out the other recent reports below.
Click here to see CaptJ's full forum report.
Click here to see AMPED's dolphin report.
Click here to see latitudeajustment's Big Pine Key report.
Cudjoe Wrecks
Florida Sportsman member: ALV
Next, we head to 350' and it hits the fan! Piner's using an electric reel and I'm humping the drop with a Quantum Cabo 60 w/80 lb. braid on a 5'6" heavy rod. I'm using the live pinfish and Harlan's using chunks of bonita that we trolled up on the way out. Game on! As fast as we could get 'em down, we were hooked up. I used a semi-horizontal rod holder to essentially wench up these brutes. Usually around five to ten minutes into the battle we'd get sharked or pull the hook. We put a lot of pressure on these fish in an attempt to keep 'em moving to try to out maneuver the sharks. It seems as if when we took even a short breather that we would almost immediately get sharked. Whew, it was work but what a blast. Finally Piner see's color on something he had managed to get through the sharks and low and behold it turns out to be a huge American red". What a great fish. Thought it was a mutton cause we weren't expecting to see a red. Finally, I managed to get an amberjack up and he looked to be about 40 to 50 pounds. Not my largest, but a good smoker. I love catching amberjack, but that love dies immediately after the first one. So off we went to hunt a dolphin up. Went to about 700' or so. We saw some interesting, fishy water, but caught our only schoolie on a 15' bamboo pole that had a lot of barnacles and small trigger fish all over it. We did some deep water jigging and brought up a small school of dolphin that Harlan ended up catching on with a pitched ballyhoo. Sad to say the school didn't stick around even though we left the fish in the water.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Halfway Ledge Trip
Florida Sportsman member: Snaphappy
At this time, I would say one of the three back boxes was 3/4 full with mostly red grouper and muttons. This is when the bite really started to pick up. Matt, Vince and I were doing well with the muttons on gogs. The mates were bringing fish after fish from the front of the boat to the stern boxes as well. A couple scamps came up on slow pitch jigs. Then the blackfin crashed the party. It was pure mayhem. They were hitting baits intended for bottom dwellers. They were hitting both vertical and slow pitch jigs. Many legit 25 pound fish going into the box. If your bait or jig did make it to the bottom the muttons and grouper were still biting well too. By time the blitz settled down the third back box was 2/3 of the way full and it was only midnight! After the sun came up, Greg assessed the situation and confirmed we had enough room for one more drift and we would be headed home by 10am. He set the boat up for the last drift and, again, the bite was good. More muttons and grouper coming up. One of the younger anglers on the trip hooked up with a good fish on a slow pitch jig. A while later and he landed a nice 30 pound black grouper. Possible pool winner? Nope. Vince gets bit on bait. This fish peels out line and won't budge of the bottom for a minute. After a good battle up comes the biggest prize of the trip, a 40 pound cubera snapper. Perfect fish to wrap things up with. Another outstanding trip put together by Greg and his crew. Memorable from start to finish.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Awesome Keys Trip
Florida Sportsman member: tehami01
So we make the trip out to the hump and get there early with only a couple of other boats out. We put out our lines and immediately have two blackfin on. Both manage to get off from Matt and my son Steven. They get the hang of it and manage to catch about seven or eight that morning. Matt also manages a nice dolphin out on the Marathon Hump that day. We attempted to do some jigging and didn't have much success. We started the trip back in and had to stop back by our favorite depth of 550' and catch two more dolphin. Matt is now hooked and will be making return trips to the keys for sure. Everything today was on different colored billy bait turbo slammers. Black/red on most of the tuna and actually one of the dolphin.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Trolling Tuna and Mahi
Florida Sportsman member: AOKRVs
On this Easter trip we set out to target mahi. I pointed the World Cat south, looking for weeds or debris. There was a big temperature break at about 400 and scattered weeds. I stopped by a couple a floaters with only jacks and a small tripletail that did not want to eat. Finally, we came upon a nice weed line at 690' and we set up the spread going west. We put out a couple jet heads and a couple skirted ballyhoo. We trolled for a while before first knock down, which was 19 inches. I saw some peanut schoolies, so we trolled back and forth in this area for a while. I make the turn back west and the right long pops the clip, but it spits the bait. Todd grabs to rod to check the bait and then it gets slammed again. A big dolphin jumps so we clear the lines. This one puts up a hard fight and does not want to come to the boat. Finally, we get it boat side for a gaff shot and in it comes. After some high fives, we set up the spread again. We worked circles around this one mile area and were able to pick up two more keepers.
Click here to see the 4/1 mahi report.
Click here to see the 3/31 tuna report.
Drifting the Dry Tortugas
Florida Sportsman member: benwah22
This trip was particularly good because we focused on shallow water, which is generally not ideal when jigging. You usually like to be in a couple hundred feet, however, here, we were hovering at about one hundred feet for the whole trip. If you can dig out big fish in shallow water, you know you've got a winner of a rod on your hands. The fishing wasn't on fire, but it was consistent on the jig. All kinds of crazy stuff came up on the jig this trip including a couple of juvenile flounder, a look-down and and octopus. As the day went on, we made a couple of moves, trying to find some hotter spots. We picked away at them and managed to get tight on all kinds of fun stuff.
Click here to see the 3/9-3/11 forum report.
Aboard Yankee Capts
Florida Sportsman member: cameron sleep
Another trip on the Yankee Capts for forum member cameron sleep led to some nice catches all around, including wahoo, snapper and big porgys. Check out the full post below.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Trolling for Blackfin
Florida Sportsman member: piner_wahoo
Forum member and the well-known Keys captain, piner_wahoo, reported trolling up some blackfin in 240'. Time for some fresh tuna sashimi!
Click here to see the full forum report.
Private Trip Aboard Yankee Capts
Florida Sportsman member: cameron sleep
I dropped a whole butterflied flying fish, hit bottom, then saw a dozen mahis near the surface. Four were landed. I rapidly reeled my flyer up to hook one and engaged a fish halfway up, with my drag set for grouper. As my top shot appeared, a big mahi was flung aboard and was thrashing about behind me and my fish went ballistic. It ran away from us about 60 feet and as I horsed it back, to our surprise, it was bright, shiny, silver. Capt Greg and others said "King mackerel." Just then it sped under the boat about 50 feet, dangerously close to a dozen lines and tangles. Another rush away and now coming back to us. Only a few feet from the surface Greg said "raise it up!" or something like that and Mikey gaffed it. Whew!
Click here to see the full forum report.
Hot Keys Bites
Florida Sportsman member: AOKRVs
"As we started turning toward shore and the left long went off. The fish did not put up much of a fight and it turned out to be a spanish mac in 250' of water. We started back to reef and left the lures out looking for a bonito. It wasn't long before we had a fish on and it was fighting much different that a bonito. After a good battle, Bill gets a huge king mac to the boat. Quick gaff and into the box." Since this report with Captain Harlan(piner_wahoo), AKORVs has written a few more reports where he got some blackfin tuna, mahi and grouper.
Click here to see the 12/2 grouper report.
Click here to see the 12/1 BFT and mahi report.
Click here to see AOKRVs's version of the 11/30 report.
Click here to see piner_wahoo's 11/30 big king report.
Keys Mixed Bags
Florida Sportsman member: piner_wahoo
Froum member piner_wahoo went out fishing on 11/24, collecting a mixed bag of a yellowtail, a red grouper and even a lionfish on the reef in some nasty weather. He also got a nice wahoo in 280'on 11/26. Forum member cameron sleep also got out recently and noticed tons of barracuda over the patch reefs and rock piles.
Click here to see the 11/26 forum report.
Click here to see the 11/24 forum report.
Click here to see cameron sleep's 11/19 report.
Yankee Capts Halfway Ledge
Florida Sportsman member: benwah22
I've never been on a trip like this before, where the bite was so unbelievably consistent on the jig. When Captain Greg says, "You should probably use a jig here, it's a lot of work, but the potential for a big reward is there," you should probably listen. There's not too many people with more experience on the water in the Tortugas and beyond, so listen when the man talks. The only way I can describe the trip is that I physically couldn't catch more fish.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Key West to Marathon Mixes
Florida Sportsman members: Reef angler & AOKRVs
Some forum members have gotten out between Marathon and Key West and have had some good fishing to report within those area, ending with a nice mixed bag for each member.
Click here to see the AOKRVs forum report.
Click here to see the Reef angler forum report.
Dinner is Served
Florida Sportsman member: piner_wahoo
Forum member piner_wahoo got out early, before the front pushed through, and capitalized on some quality eats. You can't beat dinner in two hours in 75'-240'. He ended up with a tripletail, spanish mackerel, two blackfins and a mahi.
Click here to see the full forum report.
Red-Hot Bottom Bites
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
Bottom fishing was red-hot the past few days aboard the Captain Easy! Big mutton snapper, big black grouper, plenty of yellowtail, kings, cero mackerel and even some blackfin tuna. The last three trips were all outstanding! Some of the best reef and wreck fishing I've seen in years! For anybody looking to come down to the Keys and get out fishing, we've got red-hot fishing, plenty of availability, and no lines in the Keys! It's a very rare opportunity to come to the Keys right now and have most of the ocean to yourself.
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Reef Fishing is on FIRE
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
The fishing was good before, but after the storm, it's been great. Lots of huge yellowtail, muttons, grouper, even mahi and kings have been very actively feeding. I've had the chance to take out a few friends and some customers and they have had a great time catching flag yellowtails, out from Fowey to the whistle buoy. The finger mullet are all over the marinas and bays, as expected for this time of year.
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Key West Reef Drifting
Florida Sportsman member: kayakerinkeywest
I grabbed a dozen or so of some jumbo pilchards and headed out to the reef. The day was overcast so I could not see what the clarity was like. I anchored in 100', just outside of the secondary reef. While dropping down, I kept getting whacked by reef sharks, so I pulled anchor and did one drift. It turned out to be a good idea, as I picked up a nice 21" flag yellowtail and then a bonus 23" fat mutton.
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Key Largo Pre-Irma
Florida Sportsman member: Gary M
I got some blocks of chum and shrimp, and off we went to a spot in about 100', straight out from Key Largo. We had sort of a cross-current tidal flow that did not help with generating a nice chum slick, but we picked off a few yellowtails, with my 14" being invited home. We moved in to spot in 30 feet and they loved the clarity of the water and the steady action with small yellowtails, grunts, sand tilefish, small grouper and a few very colorful parrotfish.
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Keys Trip
Florida Sportsman member: Top Water
Thanks to all the tips from the forum, we were able to get into some decent yellowtails on the patch reefs. We tried moving out deeper to the edge of the reef, but only got sharks. Friday's weather was horrible, we tried going out to the patch reefs a couple times anyway, but had to turn back each time due to the rough seas. We ended up fishing Moser Channel and were pleasantly surprised by the amount of fish there, including a surprise mutton.
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Keys White Marlin
Florida Sportsman member: catchemup
One of my anglers got his first white marlin while trolling for big dolphin offshore. We were trolling Hawaiian Eyes over horse ballyhoo about 20 miles out in the stream off of Islamorada. The catch was made on 20 pound, light, sailfish gear. The estmated weight between 65 pounds and 70 pounds. It was clean release and fish swam off in good shape.
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Marathon Hot Bites
Florida Sportsman member: piner_wahoo
Florida Sportsman forum member, piner_wahoo, recently reported great fishing off of Marathon Key. Get out and see for yourself.
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Dry Tortugas Wide Variety
Florida Sportsman member: Gary M
The game plan was grouper and snapper. Here, I'm smiling because of the very fun and strong fight this grey triggerfish gave my on my little rod! I was sure glad then, that I'd had new, upgraded drag washers installed into my little Shimano reels after the abuse that they took on last month's trip!
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Key Colony Mahi
Florida Sportsman member: Oakview
We hammered the mahi today in 800'. We got lucky and saw a frigate bird hovering over some weeds. We set the lines out and all four blew up as we passed the weeds. We spent the next 30 minutes pitching to gaffer schoolies. We kept what we wanted for some nice dinners and let the rest go for another day.
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Marathon Keys Trip
Florida Sportsman member: msk99
We decided to run and gun to see what we could find. It didn't take long for my son to spot a floating piece of plastic fencing in about 430'. We cruised up to it and was covered in peanuts and schoolies. I lost track of how many we picked off there. We had three triple headers. Lots of excitement and, again, smiles all around. We managed a few keepers and then decided to throw some metal below and we hooked up with four blackfins. Non-stop action all day.
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Cudjoe Key Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: dglowe
Trolling for dolphin is not the most efficient way to bring them in. We have been riding until we find birds and then getting close enough to cast a 1.5 oz jig to them. Typically, we hook up with a schoolie dolphin and that will bring the rest to the boat. We cut up herring to throw out to keep the school by the boat. Fish with free line, circle hooks, and cut bait and then it's on from there! The smaller fish seem to be in 300-500', while some bigger dolphin are out 600'-800'. I have also been spearing some patch reefs on the Atlantic side in 20-30'. I've picked up mostly small 12-13" hogfish there. The edge of the reef in 70-90' is where we have gotten the bigger hogs and had a few chances at grouper and mutton.
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Mahi Mayhem
Florida Sportsman member: AOKRVs
We head south looking for birds and weeds. We did not see much until 600', where we found some scattered weeds birds. We trolled around and pick up some singles and doubles. We followed this pattern out to 800' and put about 20 in the box. As we're trolling by, we see a huge turtle being swarmed by dolphins. Now we get a triple hook up and the chaos is on. We put the first one in the rod holder to keep the school by the boat. We grab chunk bait and livies on 6000 spinning gear to have some fun with the school. Must have caught 30 dolphin, four nicer size, several 22"-24” and threw the small schoolies back. With our limit in the box we head toward the light at 1:30. Awesome day.
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Solid Islamorada Mixed Bags
Florida Sportsman member: sk018
Yellowtails were very big. One day, we got a dozen from 22-24 inches. Some of the tails ate live pilchards or ballyhoo on the bottom, also got two big mangroves. We did great on black groupers, too. We had a 20lb, 15 lb, and two 10lb, all on live pilchards or live ballyhoo. Lost a lot of yellowtails in the chum line. The big flags are hard to get to the boat on such light leader. We had over 200 keeper dolphin and caught one with a tag in it.
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Keys Offshore Report
Florida Sportsman member: EarlyBird
Most mahi are school size 21-26" with a few gaffers and an elusive slammer here and there. Most of the fish I've been finding have been between 400'- 800' The football sized blackfins have been pretty consistent on the offshore sea mounts. Also, the deep droping has been decent when there's not too much current to hold bottom. The nice tiles and snowy's have been regularly showing at the docks here. The yellowtail and mutton bite has been on fire with the approaching moon, I don't expect it to slow down.
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Memorial Day Weekend Mahi
Florida Sportsman member: Red Rum
We put out a nice spread just as we hit the edge of the reef and began waiting for the bite. Within minutes three lines were screaming and we were on! After a few minutes we saw color and it ended up being three nice black-fins. We got the lines back out and about 15 minutes later in about 250' of water we come across a few war birds. Captain yells "schoolies" so we immediately start getting them rowled up by throwing chunks of bonito at them and within five minutes we had caught about 15 off of the school. The school was still behind us but refused to eat anything we pitched at them. As we were just about to take off and try and find some more fish a huge slammer pulls up behind the boat. We had a big naked ballyhoo rigged up for this situation so and we tossed it right at him. A few twitches to it and the slammer didn't hesitate once and starting screaming off with the bait. After about a 20 minute fight the fish finally tapped out we were able to get a gaff in it.
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Summerland Key Variety
Florida Sportsman member: Death From Above
We trolled around some more and saw a pallet and then had an instant quadruple hookup. We came back around and threw out some live bait and it was game on. There was a decent weedline and decided to give it a try. We got a big hit on the flat line and after a nice battle, this big boy hits the deck. We found the tuna and caught them until we could not take it anymore and headed in. The weather turned rough mid-week, so we fished inshore with nice catches of snapper and had fun with barracuda skyrocketing in the chum line. The best results offshore were either close or in between 250' and 450' or out past the wall on Billy Baits. The best results inshore were with cut bonita and live shrimp.
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World Class Muttons
Florida Sportsman member: CaptJ
We fished the deep ledge off of Tavernier this afternoon and caught some substantial muttons. The largest was on 12 pound test spinner on a yellowtail jig with 15 pound leader. A few nice yellowtails as well, but the mutton bite was world class.
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Banner Offshore Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: EarlyBird
After a long third drift, we decided to bring her up and call it a day. About 100' up the rod doubled over and we were tight, fish on!
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Key Largo Patch Reef
Florida Sportsman member: beachsideandy
I got out to a patch reef with a nice 16 to 30ft drop. I netted a ton of ballyhoo to take back with me for the dolphin run up in my area. Right when I was finishing up, two cobia appeared behind the boat. One ate a ballyhoo chunk and I put it in the box.
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Key Largo Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: CaptJ
We fished the reef in about 65' and had a bang up day. Caught a really nice twelve pound mutton on yellowtail bait, a nice black grouper, a fifteen pound jack, and the usual suspects.
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Islamorada Fishing Trip
Florida Sportsman member: TDanLew
We spent some time fishing near the local bridges. We would chum upcurrent of the structure and had steady action on small to medium sized snappers, grunts, and other such fish. As with the flats, the best luck we had here was using shrimp for bait on jig heads or egg sinker rigs.
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Screamer Pulley Ridge King
Florida Sportsman member: cameron sleep
The drag was set light and I had thirty feet of mono, to lessen the sudden impact of a good bite, but as this speedster ran. I increased the drag, trying to slow him down. The fish would not stop!
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Keys Wahoo and Tails
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
I put a flat line out with a live speedo, thinking we will hook up a nice king. The speedo hits the water and shoots out like a torpedo. Within 30 seconds we are hooked up to one of the fastest fish in the ocean.
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Pulley Ridge Haul
Florida Sportsman member: cameron sleep
Jacks started hammering baits, all up and down the port side. So when I felt three, quick, vicious strikes on my bait, I locked up and less than a second later, Dang did too. I hauled rather hard to keep him from burning up and down through the water column. I noticed that Dang's rod, right beside me and mine, were dipping and rising in unison and suspected we both had the same fish.
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Big Pine Blackfin
Florida Sportsman member: Northern
There seems to be a lot of big blackfins around right now. Unfortunately, I'm losing too many boat side in the process of trying to get them in the boat. This one was 17.5lbs, but the two lost at boat side were bigger.
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Pulley Ridge Trip
Florida Sportsman member: Xaf
There was a steady pick all day long. A few AJs, more snowy grouper, and gray tiles came up. There were yellow eye, hambone, and black fin snapper on almost every drop. Sometimes you could feel them hit before you even got to the bottom.
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Click Here for forum member cameron sleep's report from the same trip.
Big Pine Key Bites
Florida Sportsman member: AMPED
Fished from American Shoal Lighthouse to the Sambos. All bites/fish came between 115-165 feet, with the exception of the missed wahoo around 270 feet. Finished with the following, one blackfin tuna, one sailfish, one kingfish and one bonito.
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Big Grouper Surprise
Florida Sportsman member: Northern
We were on our way to a spot that we were going to anchor up and them chum for snapper. We trolled the last part of the distance to the spot hoping to catch something to use as fresh bait. Instead Teri caught the biggest grouper of her life!
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Big Kings in Backcountry
Florida Sportsman member: piner_wahoo
Fire up the smoker, Keys backcountry is a hot spot right now! Check out these big kings piner_wahoo is showing off. He also snagged some spanish macks and snapper while exploring.
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Lower Keys Wreck Vertical Jigging
Florida Sportsman member: kayakerinkeywest
A guide boat showed up and started with the pilchards, so we tucked right behind them and drifted along. Blackfins were popping and we were able to capitalize on their chumming. We caught the mutton on the bottom and the kings and tuna towards the top.
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Keys Gulf Stream Fishing Success
Florida Sportsman member: Hollywood Joe
I trolled the whole way out and caught a decent sized mackerel, which was donated to the smoking committee in hopes of a few more to make for a nice X-Mas fish dip. Nothing else, until we slowed down nearing the first spot. I was reeling in, and with my lure about 10 feet from the boat, this kind sacrificial fella decided to take his own life for me.
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Key Largo Reef Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
Some nice fish have been reported by forum member
miami mutton. These were caught out of Ocean Reef in Key Largo.
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Big Pine Key Wahoo
Florida Sportsman member: piner_wahoo
Forum member
piner_wahoo has been doing solo trips over the last week off Big Pine Key and has been bringing home some nice 'hoos, each one seemingly bigger than the last.
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Grassy Key Mahi and Mixed Bites
Florida Sportsman member: piner_wahoo
Forum member
piner_wahoo nailed a nice mixed bag got off Grassy Key in 180'-230'. They took home bonito, cero mackerel, skipjack, and some nice dolphins!
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South Key Largo Grouper and Snapper Bites
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
The fish are shallow now with cooling waters, we fished 55 ft and the bite was great. We had the yellow tails close behind and of decent size. The first bait down got slammed by a nice black grouper and the next bait got hit by a mutton, after another black was caught.
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Cudjoe Key Variety Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: saltlifegarrett
We have been catch everything from mutton to sailfish. Mahi and tuna have been caught just about everyday.
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Week of Fishing in Marathon: Tasty Mixed Bag
Florida Sportsman member: cameron sleep
Something ran off with the bait and really objected to my attempts to bring it to the surface. The something turned out to be a beautiful 25 inch mutton snapper, probably 8-9 pounds and I quickly aborted moving. Next drop, a 21 inch mutton met the same fate. My chicken rig was producing small yellowtails and a decent 18 inch, tasty, speckled grouper. A more urgent pull yielded a double header of 16 inch muttons, to complete the catching for the day.
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Keys Snapper Assortment
Florida Sportsman member: piner_wahoo
Forum member,
piner_wahoo picked up a nice assortment of thick snapper over by Big Pine Key. Someone is gonna be eating good tonight!
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Shrimp Boat Fishing Slam
Florida Sportsman member: bambam78
The line ran off the reel faster and stronger than any of the other bites. The fight on a fast action rod and a 30 class reel was an absolute blast. Capt. Chaz told me as the fish got closer to the surface, that Yellowfin will do crazy things. Sure enough he was right. We saw color on the fish and shortly after, it made a run for the bow of the boat.
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Wahoo in the Keys
Florida Sportsman member: flbluerunner
We decided to make a quick Wahoo trip since the wind laid down and I had a good tide. On our second pass in one of my favorite areas, we got 45lb-er in the box.
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Islamorada Action
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
Even with the tough fishing we've managed to put a lot of nice catches together. We haven't had many easy days though, but the last two days out this week saw a huge improvement and I'm hoping it's the beginning of some red hot fishing. We got in on several large schools of mahi of mixed sizes from schoolies to some fish up to 30 pounds the last two days.
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Tortugas Trip
Florida Sportsman member: Gary M
Yuri would toss out some herring pieces to get the fish next to the boat. He was looking to see if any blackfins were in the schools of bonito and he had warned us, "You may have to catch 10 bonito in order to finally hook a blackfin so break off any bonito as soon as you can, re-tie and get a bait back in the water."
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Red Hot Reef Action
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
We've had some really good reef fishing down here in Islamorada the last few weeks. Yellowtail fishing has been on fire and we're catching some really nice black grouper and mutton snapper as well. Today we went to the reef and caught our limit of 40 yellowtail snapper in the morning.
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Surprise Visitor
Florida Sportsman member: boackerman
Forum member
boackerman and friends got into some nice yellowtails and grouper recently. They also got a surpise visit from a cobia, that came home for dinner.
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Tavernier Muttons
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
As we were heading to it, I noticed a big party boat anchored about a mile before getting to my spot, knowing this area well, I knew he was on the fish. Keeping our distance and about a half mile down current, I told Capt. Evan slow down and let's scan the bottom here with the sounder and sure enough, we marked a load of fish right on the bottom.
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Heading Out to the Hump
Florida Sportsman member: flbluerunner
We left the dock at about 8am, and worked our way to the Marathon Hump, made a couple of passes, got a handful of tuna and moved on. We ended up catching the mahi about three miles south of the hump.
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Islamorada Wahoo
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
We loaded the bait wells and headed just offshore of the reef in the 140 foot range to start fishing. Flat calm seas, glowing blue water, and a very strong current are all great wahoo conditions and we had them all. That and the approaching front coming later that evening seemed to have the wahoo's fired up! I think almost every boat fishing in a three to four mile area just offshore of the reef caught wahoo yesterday.
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Dry Tortugas Jigging
Florida Sportsman member: benwah22
I have never seen a wide open scamp bite before, but drop after drop they kept hitting slow pitch jigs. We didn't even have time to get some of them in the cooler, and I was kicking scamps off the rail.
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A Trip to the West
Florida Sportsman member: Gary M
The next morning, I dropped one of my whole shrimp to the bottom and bam, I was hooked up! He ran just like a shark would have done, but I got him stopped and got him off the bottom. Looking down, I saw a stockier fish than a shark and I soon knew it was a nice mutton snapper!
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Islamorada Action
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
We wound up catching two sailfish, a nice black grouper, a mutton snapper, a few kingfish, and best of all a triple header of 30 to 40 pound wahoo on 16 pound spinning tackle. The wahoo flurry was quite the sight. We hooked the first one on a live cigar minnow on the down rod, It bit while we were winding it up to check the bait.
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Dolphin in Close
Florida Sportsman member: Teamteke
With rain storms solid offshore, we worked the shallow 220 to 270 foot depths where the scattered weeds held the dolphin. NOAA said the gulf stream was only two miles off of Sombrero light. We did venture out to about 500 feet and found a one degree rise in the water temp.
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Dolphin in the Weeds
Florida Sportsman member: flbluerunner
We did have a big one on but could not keep him from loading up on weeds and coming unwound. Funny thing, it was raining and if I got out of the rain the bite shut off, so we fished in the rain, and I took pellet beating in the tower.
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Speed Jigging Fun
Florida Sportsman member: Tavernierguy
The guys I had aboard jig from Kayaks all day, so they had it dialed. Bite was at the low tide then just kept getting and better has the tide started to move. Caught a wide variety of fish and few "fish heads".
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Good Bite Out Deep
Florida Sportsman member: INTREPID377
The most excitement we had was a when a school of juvenile sailfish began tearing up the spread. We had five lines hit in addition to both teasers. Finally, after running around in circles from rod to rod, we got one to stick on the Wide Range moldcraft in the shotgun position. He wasn't very big, but he was a sailfish.
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Fun in the Marquesas
Florida Sportsman member: Captbernie
Just back from a week in Key West with my wife and son. We had outstanding weather,fishing and diving. We spent four out of the six days fishing, diving and exploring the Marquesas. Limited on bugs daily and caught/speared enough fish for eats each day.
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Marathon Reef Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
The ballyhoos are on the reef but the speedos are a gamble, one day, they are at the bag and the next they are lost. Grouper have been biting good on speedos and live horse hoos and some nice muttons have fallen for those same baits.
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A Keys Adventure
Florida Sportsman member: Fish Tails
We stopped to check some fishy rips and a smaller weed line but Captain didn't like the color of the water. And right about 28 miles off shore there it was. The mother of all weed lines, beautiful blue water and lines were in. Not three minutes later the starboard short goes off and my boy is on his first dolphin.
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Keys Trip with the Kids
Florida Sportsman member: FlagMaster
Forum member
FlagMaster and kids enjoyed a recent trip to the keys. Big grouper, mutton and yellowtail snapper filled the cooler, as well as hogfish taken via speargun.
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Florida Keys Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: Gary M
We also had a pretty good bite with the yellowtail snappers. I tend to fish for them more than the heavy gear on the bottom and on this trip I got nice fish up to 23 1/2 inches. Fat ones too and on my light spinner, it was just a blast.
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Epic Trip to Pulley Ridge
Florida Sportsman member: cudaman
A lot of screaming reels all over the boat with double hook ups, up to quad hookups, the over under screaming of the mates could be heard from one end of the boat to the other as the mixed bag of fish started flooding the decks. Some bonitas (little tunny) found their way into the mix and a regular scene to happen of the days of fishing.
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Find the Birds, Find the Fish
Florida Sportsman member: seamonkey23
We then decided to run and gun. I saw 2 or 3 birds that were joined by 3 or 4 more circling something, so dropped the baits. We watched the birds circle back to our baits and as soon as I mentioned that, we hooked up on the bigger bull and cow.
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Night Time is the Right Time
Florida Sportsman member: PBG POOLGUY
The mangrove bite was red hot! Got out a couple hours before dark, had the chum flowing and picked at some smaller snappers and managed a nice rock hind, but when the sun went down it was on! All the big whitebait you wanted in the light all night long, bug a bait, drop it down and bam!
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Keys Offshore Bite
Florida Sportsman member: Got Ta Go
Dolphin have been holding mostly between 500-750'. I won't say they have been easy, but if you keep working at it in the grass you'll put together a nice catch. Seems they've been wanting meat, as most my catches have been coming on ballyhoo with or without skirts.
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Tearing Up the Tortugas
Florida Sportsman member: Gary M
It was a matter of picking off a few nice fish, move to another spot and repeat throughout the trip. But we did have a wild snapper bite that gave us a very busy hour at sundown the first night!
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Islamorada Offshore Variety
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
Dolphin fishing has really picked up for us over the past week down here in Islamorada. Every day has been a little different, and it can still be a little hit or miss, but we had a few outstanding trips over the weekend.
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The Gift of Dolphin
Florida Sportsman member: kajo
We headed out to 650 feet, put out a few trolling rigs and hooked up pretty fast. We got some schoolies in the cooler and after hooking 4 we saw a mass of flying fish blast out of the water a little ways away and a second later a huge mahi mauling them.
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Keys Trip Success
Florida Sportsman member: stoutner
We went back out Thursday afternoon and found a nice solid weedline in about 650-700 feet of water. Trolled up to it and as soon as we arrived we were doubled up on Dolphin. Stopped trolling and started to chunk up that Bonito to bring the school to us.
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Day Saving Tuna
Florida Sportsman member:flbluerunner
Decided to go Southwest, there were broken weeds the whole way. Got out about 28 miles off and found birds were everywhere.
It was a big school of blackfins,and we were able to catch all we wanted. Kept 3 nice ones and let the rest go.
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Working for the Fish
Florida Sportsman member: Gulf2Back2Front
Weed formations were key with the occasional dolphin jumping to confirm our aspirations. These were caught mostly on Billy Bait and our own techniques for getting more.
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Islamorada Grouper
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
So we ditched the reef fishing plan and headed off to power drift on some deeper wrecks. In addition to the grouper there were also lots of amberjack and jack crevalle on many of the wrecks. I did notice a lot of pressure on the reef and wrecks. It was hard to find a spot not covered up with either boats hook and line fishing or divers spearfishing.
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Islamorada Day and Night
Florida Sportsman member: jcuilla
Our guests were some long time anglers in the area and Uncle Ted, the brother of Robbie, as in Robbie's Marina. Awesome guy! Toward the end of the trip the short line gets slammed and it's game on!
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Catching in the Marquesas
Florida Sportsman member: heavychevy15
Fished the Marquesas and got some decent fish out there this past weekend. We caught yellow tail, muttons, red snapper, some other bi-catch, and a handful of grouper (that all went back).
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Permit, Cobia and a Surprise
Florida Sportsman member: NauticalWheeler
The real surprise at this location was when I saw a small shark with interesting markings cruising around the boat. I thought it might resemble a tiger shark, but wasn't sure. I threw out a live bait in haste and was only using 40 pound mono for a leader and was lucky to not get bitten off, but the hook was right in the corner of the mouth.
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Islamorada Wahoo and More
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
We had about a 45 minute flurry with at least one wahoo on the whole time. We wound up catching 4 out of 8 and had as many as 3 wahoo fighting over baits at once just 20 feet behind the boat including a couple the skyrocketed about 8 feet out of the water chasing the baits.
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Shallow Water Fun
Florida Sportsman member: Jciulla
Here's a few pics from this week in patch reefs from 18-22 feet. Lots of good action from mangroves, muttons and mackerel. It seems like the fish are starting to go back to hitting the cut bait more as well as the live shrimp.
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Catching Fish on the Drift
Florida Sportsman member: youngguns2
We wanted to fill the box so decided to fish all wire on the top and mid rods and immediately had a triple on sailfish on the first set up. With only two people on board and wire leader, you can imagine the chaos that ensued but we did manage to land one out of the three.
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Fishing the Patches
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
We had a great day patch fishing today. Fishing the patches about a half mile inside the edge of the reef. The water was completely mudded over with the strong southwest wind we had last night. That and a moderate northeast current made for some great patch fishing conditions. We wound up with a few dozen nice yellowtail, some hogfish, porgies, and a half dozen muttons including some really nice ones.
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Mack Attack
Florida Sportsman member: piner_wahoo
Forum member
piner_wahoo got into some nice fish offshore, fishing in his flats boat. Big kingfish and snapper should make for some excellent fillets and fish dip!
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Islamorada Deep Dropping
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
The kings made for some fast action and after catching our limit of them on cigar minnows just offshore of the reef. We then headed offshore and spent the rest of the day bottom dropping in depths from 400 to 800 feet deep. We wound up with an excellent catch of yellow eye snapper, vermillion snapper, queen snapper, tilefish, and a couple of beautiful yellow edge grouper up to 30 pounds.
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Keys Mixed Bag
Florida Sportsman member: TeamTeke
Along the way we set out a dolphin spread of four Billy Baits. Luckily I put out one that had some wire on it as it got slammed by a nice wahoo. Others suggested at hookup that it was just a skipjack tuna but this fish was pulling some serious drag and did not want to come in. Finally getting it closer Harry yelled from the upper helm that it was a good wahoo. Bingo!
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Duck Key Reef Report
Florida Sportsman member: TeamTeke
Albert takes the first drift. Only one angler drifts at a time. At a moderate distance back he gets a run-off and hook up which produced a nice mangrove snapper. My wife Tania and myself each took our turns having bites and landing fish also. I think Albert went 7 or 8 fish straight without a miss.
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Summerland Key Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: Death From Above
The weather was still good so we went for it one more time. Picked up some nice dolphin on another weedline and then the big hoo shows up. Hit a blue and with Islander with a rigged ballyhoo. The bait was rigged with mono so it was a little tense until he hit the deck.
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Fun Weekend in the Keys
Florida Sportsman member: Lori Jo Fishing
Cayden's on the reel, gets him boat side and the phin goes crazy. Then the captain sees more phins and says get some more baits out. Me and Jeff hook up and we ended up catching all three.
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Tavernier Tuna and Dolphin
Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy
Found dolphin all afternoon and into the evening. Dolphin were on small current rips and slicks. Found a couple on small white birds. Fish were between 270 to 350 feet for me. They were in closer as well, but found the best action in that depth so I stuck with it.
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Tearin' Up the Tortugas
Florida Sportsman member: cudaman
In the morning I started jigging and was able to connect with a red grouper, a story that would repeat over and over about 20 times. On this trip the ged groupers seemed to like jigs slowly jigged near the bottom.
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Mixed Bag off Islamorada
Florida Sportsman member: EarlyBird
We managed to hook three and land two 40 pound hoo's. My guests then looked at me and says, "Capt let's head on in because we can't top this" and I happily took her on in. We ended the day with 7 wahoos, 40 mahi, 2 tripletail, and a dozen tunas.
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Day Timing off Duck Key
Florida Sportsman member: out of the blue
We were now 5 for 6 on the day and we deployed once more and as we were near the end of the drift, there was the unmistakable tap. We went to work, he felt heavy all the way up so we were thinking it was foul hooked or a shark.
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Slayin' Them Solo
Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy
Went solo today looking for a phins and maybe wahoo and the fish were hungry! The bull and the cow crashed the baits at the same time. Cow hit the wire leader and the bull smacked the mono. 20 minutes later put them over the rail, thankfully the seas were flat. Both ate blue and white islanders.
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Limiting Out
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
I started the usual chum slick to find the yellowtails eating right behind the motors. The guys took pictures and were excited to begin the catching, which they did just that, in a short time we had our limit and a mutton on the bottom to make the 50 snapper limit.
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Fishing on the Edge
Florida Sportsman member: ShallowSalt
Biggest score of the week was a 19.5 pound blackfin tuna caught on 20 pound spin gear while drifting. We began to see the big boys skying about a quarter mile behind the boat and eventually they worked their way close enough and took a drifting bait behind the boat.
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Islamorada Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: INTREPID377
Based on what we saw, if you want a shot at a dolphin, you're going to need to run a bit. I know some bigger dolphin were caught in close, but no real numbers. If you want blackfin tuna, both the 409 and Islamorada Hump were loaded with small fish.
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Catching in Key Largo
Florida Sportsman member: Joepilot
Dolphin were abundant about 10 to 17 miles off Key Largo. The ocean was glass and no one around to compete with. The edge of the stream was clearly visible in these condition, which was really interesting to see so defined.
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Keys Swords
Florida Sportsman member: out of the blue
We went to work and after a short battle placed a 50 incher on the deck. My spell had been broken and it was my buddy's turn, unfortunately we pulled the hook on the next bite and then we caught a big mako in 1700 feet of water, we let that one go as it was only 1130 am and no point on putting that on the deck.
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Pulley Ridge Trip
Florida Sportsman member: Xaf
Greg said we could go ahead and load our gear. So we lugged all the above mentioned gear from the truck to the boat. Then it was off to the Hogfish for a bowl of lobster bisque and an order of hogfish fingers. Soon the rest of the anglers for the trip started showing up and went through the ritual of loading their gear on the boat. Finally it was 8 pm and time to shove off.
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Dry Tortugas Trip
Florida Sportsman member: Gary M
We all agreed the next morning that none of us had ever seen such a long, hot bite of such consistently BIG yellowtails! Even Ed, who fishes for yellowtails a lot in the Bahamas, was having a hard time remembering such great action over in the islands.
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Little Torch Key Mixed Bag
Florida Sportsman member: punchdog
It was getting to be early evening so we decided to troll back in and saw a frigate at about 600 feet. Followed him for a short while and a schoolie mahi hits a lure. As we are bringing him in 3 or 4 big mahi are following. Avery, who is 12, grabs a pitch rod, puts a pinfish on the big circle hook, tosses it out and hooks the 47 inch cow. About 20 minutes later, good gaff shot and it is in the boat.
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Deep Dropping and Dolphin off Key Largo
Florida Sportsman member: Veikx
We set up a drift, and put down some bonita chunks. First pull up 3 roses, we were ecstatic! We did two more drops with 3 rosies each time. Afterward we continued to troll and found a nice log in 650 feet. This was loaded with schoolies, most of them were right at 20 inches but we landed 5 that were 22 plus inches. Many were thrown back to get bigger.
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Dinosaur Dolphin off Key Largo
Florida Sportsman member: SeaCarrII
Around 12:30 pm, we came up on a frigate tracking fish from about 30 yards up, with bait splashing below. Followed him for a few minutes, and our two trolled ballyhoo got hit. About a 30 pound cow jumped and spit the hook, but this bull came aboard after a long fight. It hit a green skirted ballyhoo in 670 feet, about 17 or 18 miles out.
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First Phin in the Box
Florida Sportsman member: SonarSup
Looked for weed lines and birds and didn't find any. A lot of sargasso patches but no distinct weed lines to troll up and down. I trolled around 5 knots when I hit the 330 foot mark my drag started screaming. About 5 minutes later my wife and I got the fish in the boat. 20 pound 40 inch first dolphin for my wife and I!
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Big Pine Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: AMPED
We went out to about 625 feet today, East of Big Pine Key & West of Sombrero Light. We caught some really nice phins (triple header), some peanuts which were tagged and released, average size wahoo, a black fin tuna, and some cudas. Left at 8am and was back by 3:00 pm.
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Mahi in Marathon
Florida Sportsman member: CatchDog
Forum member
CatchDog has been on the dolphin off of Marathon. Catching many fish trolling naked and skirted ballyhoo between 630 and 750 feet. The big bull was taken on a blue and white islander.
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Tearing up Tavernier
Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy
Reef bite has been ok when the current cooperates. Been having some fun catching and releasing Permit. Got to do some grouper fishing on Sunday May 4 for the first time in along while. First drop we took a nice black grouper for dinner!
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Gettin' Jiggy in the Keys
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
On Saturday we took out Greg, George, Eric, Jomal, and Lynn and released 32 amberjacks all between 30 and 75 pounds as well as a dozen almaco jacks and banded rudderfish. These guys are a group of vertical jiggers from Miami and loosely refer to themselves as the "Miami wrecking crew".
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Lower Keys Cobes
Florida Sportsman member: Bill Welder
We kept the first 3 and released number 4 and passed on number 5. We could have taken more.They ate whatever we threw at them. My clients also kept about a dozen yellowtails between 18 to 20 inches. Sharks are thick. We leadered a large Bull shark after a 45 minute tug of war. Only saw 2 Sportfishers all day.
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Tavernier Slammers
Florida Sportsman member: youngguns2
Found a nice bucket with bait but no mahi, then came across a nice piece of bamboo with heavy mono tied to it with again lots of bait and a triple tail but no mahi. Kept running southwest till about 11:30 am when we spotted a hawk heading down on the water in 750 feet and it was chaos from then on. With only 3 guys on the boat, we got covered by 3 large slammers, hooked all 3 fish but ended up landing the bull and the smaller cow.
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Awesome Trip on the Yankee Capts
Florida Sportsman member: LitiGATOR
The mate gaffed the fish and a beautiful mutton hit the deck. I don't know if Juozas had ever caught one before, but I believe it was his first on the Yankee. At 10-years old, on his first trip out here. That's impressive. You couldn't wipe the smile of his face.
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Lower Keys Reef Bite
Florida Sportsman member: Apnatic
Decided that was enough mutton meat for us so we headed in a little shallower to a wreck in 100 feet to get some tails. After sandballing for about 45 minutes we had as much as I could keep and give away to a few buddies.
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Little Bit of Everything Out of Islamorada
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
The deep dropping has been spectacular when the conditions have been right for it. Mostly a mix of queen snapper and nice blueline tilefish with some snowy grouper mixed in. I think I've probably seen more queen snapper this winter than I have in years. The queens and bigger tiles have been in 600 to 800 feet of water while there have been yelloweye snapper, and some nice vermillions in the 400 feet depths.
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Staying in the Fish on the Yankee Captain
Florida Sportsman member: cameronsleep
Capt Greg motored us to a canyon with current. Golden tile fish, barrel fish and numerous other fishies appeared, then the highlight, queen snappers! I was lucky and nailed on of the largest of these beauties, almost as big as the one I caught last summer. What a climax to the trip! About eight or ten were landed, including one that came unhooked and was floating away. Greg got us to reel in and went on a recovery mission. You don't abandon a beauty like that!
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Deep Dropping Off Cudjoe Key
Florida Sportsman member: urbanRenewal
We only had a few hours due to prior commitments but we ran out deep and rigged up while we figured out the drift. We made one pass over the structure, adjusted and quickly into the next pass it was game on. Jeff, with some help from Bugsy, got to work.
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Big Blackfins off Big Pine
Florida Sportsman member: piner_wahoo
Forum member
piner_wahoo Caught some monster blackfin tuna on live bait in the lower keys recently. Some anglers can't decide what is better, the fight of these awesome fish, or the filets!
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Going Gulf Side
Florida Sportsman member: Got TA Go
Was a little bumpy on the south side when we left the dock, so I was glad that we were headed to the Gulf. Stopped by the airport marker to get some Pilchards for the live well, and they were there. After sabiking some up we headed for the Gulf. Sad to say that we didn't find and Cobia, but conditions were awesome. Flat calm seas, clear skies.
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Down South Dolphin
Florida Sportsman member: Bill Welder
Just looking for birds, we stumbled on a weed line that was clean on the north edge and ran for a couple miles on the edge of the Ups and Downs. We were in 575 feet at daylight and never saw another boat. Only a fool would troll that deep this time of the year for dolphin. Gentle breeze changed to the east and the bite was over. We were back by 11AM. Mark and I ended up with 8 dolphin to 24 pounds.
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Sails and Tails
Florida Sportsman member: SaltwaterSportswoman
The bait used today were goggle eyes. While drifting we fished the bottom rod and hooked up to some mutton snapper and small sharks. We also caught some yellowtail snapper on the patches. The first sailfish came up on one of the baits mid-day and had a successful release. The next sailfish came up on the long bait about 30 minutes later and unfortunately unhooked during the fight.
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Great Way To End The Year
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
Paul, the angler who caught it paid his dues big time for this one. He stayed out and got soaked for over an hour fighting this fish on 20# spinning tackle. With the rain pouring down and some pretty big waves breaking over the stern while we where backing down. I was afraid we might lose him overboard one time.
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Wintertime Wahoo
Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy
My wife and I went to the reef yesterday morning on Christmas Eve. We went 1 for 3 on wahoo. Fish were eating in 190 feet of water. Caught on red/black on the down bait over dead ballyhoo, trolling 7 knots. Got the one we wanted!
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Big Pine Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: dihrd
Most of the fishing has happened from the protection of land. We have caught lots of small to keeper mangrove snapper, and grouper around bridges. Some of the best spots have been deep holes in channels where we have caught good numbers of muttons and red grouper with several keepers.
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Reef Fishing Off Key Largo
Florida Sportsman member: Gary M
The next time the bottom rod when off, I knew that I had a real fish. When I finally saw "pink", I no doubt grinned as it was my favorite fish, a nice Mutton Snapper. I netted him and he measured out at 19 inches. The fish box instantly got a lot better looking!
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"Grouper Bombs" Off Tavernier
Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy
The black grouper bite continues to produce for my clients who want to target them. Finding them between 60 to75 feet. Took A couple guys from Missouri last week in for a short reef "meat" trip. They made one request prior to the trip, catch a black grouper for dinner. Caught a mess of tails then switched over to dropping "grouper bombs". Went 1 for 3 then headed in with a grouper for dinner.
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Putting A Legend On The Fish
Florida Sportsman member: CaptainGeoffrey
Today we had a real treat, Captain Tred Barta on the boat. We caught 15 tunas, handful of medium Mahi, and a sail!
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Tallying Up The Tile Fish Down South
Florida Sportsman member: urbanRenewel
Yesterday afternoon we targeted Wahoo without success. Today, with reports of slim pickings on pelagics offshore, light winds and little current we kept the trolling gear in the racks and opted to deep drop. 6 tilefish later we headed home after a successful 'Plan B", 27 inches being the biggest.
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Keys Offshore Producing
Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy
Thursday I had another group of repeat clients from Denmark. Trolled for a little awhile but these guys like reef action more than chasing tunas and dolphin. Tails were chewing for them on Wednesday night. Seas were slick and we had good current. They were of pretty good size. Not spring time quality but still good looking fish.
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Upper Keys Flags
Florida Sportsman member: heavychevy15
The day started off really rough with a storm moving through. We tried to stay away but all it did was ruin the time we had to fish. We decided to run through it and get to some spots. We started chumming and here came the trigger fish. Once we were able to get past them we had the yellow tails coming over the sides. Finished with 17 tails and a few had some real good size to them. Made for a good dinner that night with friends visiting from Ocala.
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Big Keys Grouper
Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy
Clients have had "grouper" fever of late, No muttons or yellowtails, just grouper. So we did the grouper thing again on Saturday morning. Had a couple from Iowa first time fishing in the Keys. The fish were beating them up but they stuck with it. Was going to switch them back to Yellowtail fishing when McKayla made one last drop for her "picture" fish. Heard her scream, thought something was wrong. She put the heat on this fish. Caught the fish in the middle of day. We put the fish in the box and went home.
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Snapper Slam
Florida Sportsman member: Miamimuttonman
Today I was out on the Yellowfin 42 again, with the girls. These girls are fishing fanatics they will fish all day long and want to reel in every fish that they hook big or small. We got to today's spot and the current was running fast to the north, caught one yellowtail before a big yacht went right across the chum slick. We left for another spot 3 miles away in 68 feet, we anchored there and saw a small boat with two guys fishing about 200 feet on the east side of where we anchored. Instantly I knew when these girls got going and start catching fish the neighbors were not going to feel to good. It was a perfect day with the correct conditions, even though I would of preferred a little less current, and the fish started coming over the gunnel
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Mutton Spawn
Florida Sportsman member: Miamimuttonman
I was out today from south Key Largo, we headed to Tavernier, I put the yellowtails behind the boat in 65 feet and the current was so slow they would not eat. The barracudas however, would eat as soon as wee hooked a fish. My customer got a nice mutton on the bottom As I caught about 15 ballyhoo, then we were set for the mutton bite in deep water we headed north 10 miles or so and got to 150 feet deep in a spot marking good fish on the bottom so we anchored. after a few minutes, my customer hooks up with a nice black grouper that fought real nice, I pulled him in the boat, then began with the high fives and pics. After the celebrations were over back down we go with another ballyhoo and a good north current. He hooked up to a nice mutton next after pulliing him in his son hooks up and its another mutton. We got a hand full here and time ran out,but they where happy to get dinner for a couple of days....
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Tavernier Mutton Mania
FLorida Sportsman member: Miamimuttonman
We headed straight out to the deep as we had a load of goggle eyes and ballyhoo. We headed north and anchored in 140 feet, put down a bait using a 24 oz lead and it was barely holding as the current was ripping north. We put down another line on the other side with a 28 oz weight and ended up catching two muttons The current was getting stronger as time went by, we got out a 32 oz weight and it was just too much for these guys to feel the bottom while keeping the weight there, So I decided to go back south and hit 60 feet, for some yellowtails and bottom fishing there. We got to the spot and the yellowtails came close behind as I was chumming heavily. I put two guys on the bottom rods and as one of them started fishing for the yellow tails the fish pushed back and the muttons started to bite on the yellow tail rigs with a small hook and 12 lb test. The first mutton, just couldn't be turned as he ran for the bottom, another 6 made it to the boat though, as Jeff put the pressure of the rods to work turning the head of the fish towards the boat as they all took some drag.We also released an undersized black and lost the usual fish to the rocky bottom, they had a great time and all took turns catching fish overall a great day on the water until next time tight lines
Lower Keys Tripletail
Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71
I've been thoroughly enjoying this break in the weather pattern we've had since the end of May and taking advantage by staying primarily offshore. There have been dolphin everywhere each day from 300 feet. and on out to the wall. I haven't seen too many larger fish, but some 15 to 20 pounders are still being caught with an occasional 35 plus being heard of. Lots of blackfins still scattered around as well [...]
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Tavernier Bull
Florida Sportsman member: COJE PEJE
My buddy and I cleared Tavernier Creek about 7:30 and headed out to find that the forecast was actually on point. We found a decent weed line in 400 feet of water and began trolling. We hooked up with a nice cow which we boated, and caught 2 more schoolies on the troll. At about 10:00 we got hit hard, and a huge bull jumped out of the water. Seconds later the cow takes the other bait and starts running, but soon after jumps shaking her head and spits the bait. After a 25 minute fight, we finally landed the bull which ended up weighing 44 pounds.
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Islamorada Dolphin
Florida Sportsman member: INTREPID377
I squeezed one more trip in yesterday before bringing the boat back to Lauderdale to prep for Bimini. Based on our recent trips I decided to focus on 650' of water and see what we could find. We were rewarded almost immediately with a nice cow.
These fish were very finicky and we had to follow them for extended periods to get a strike. They were gorging themselves on flying fish and had tuna sized flocks of birds over them. We could shadow the fish at trolling speed and watch them lazily cruise by the boat. They'd turn on pitched baits but not hit and then casually swim from bait to bait in the spread. It was frustrating but at the same time very cool to watch the fish for an extended period of time. Finally after following one fish for nearly an hour (and having a "run & gun" boat give up ) we got the largest dolphin of the day to eat a pitched ballyhoo.
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Key Largo Dolphin
Florida Sportsman member: Chewdog2121
Finally got the opportunity to get offshore and chase all these dolphin everyone is talking about. Water temps were 77-78 degrees and a solid SE Wind at 13 mph. Well, we had to work, but managed to put together a respectable haul. It was a bit sloppy, call it a solid 3-4 feet at times, some a bit more. We shot out to 900+ feet briefly, but ended up pushing back in to the 300-450 foot zone. At least there was broken live grass in this area and lots of terns. Anything past 500 feet was pretty desert-like, no grass, debris, and minimal bird activity out there. Once we came back in, we picked up the only frigate we saw all day, along with a tern working hard to the southeast. The flying fish were flying! We casted live bait into the activity and hooked up a nice 30-lb cow
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Mahi Off Cudjoe Key
Florida Sportsman member: urbanRenewal
We headed offshore and after talking to a few others on the radio, we decided to drop in and start trolling at 350 feet or so. Almost immediately we hooked and landed a schoolie that was about 25 inches. At about 450 feet the rigger popped and we had a much better fish, call it 38 inch fork length. We continued south through the ups and downs with reports of the occasional fish in the second 600 feet. Sure enough, a way back goes off and another 38-40 inch fork comes in. We continued to troll and on the way back in at 600 feet we hook up again and put another 40 inch fork Mahi in the box.
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Key Largo Grouper and Redfish
Florida Sportsman member: gtpvette
Finally got out yesterday and the wife and I had a really nice day! We ended up running in about 1PM as a couple of Storm clouds were moving in. We were in 120' Grouper were really biting. Our one Red went the better part of 15l pounds. I Hated putting him back. Water was flat and clear.
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Lower Keys Amberjack
Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71
After getting through the windy/rainy/lightning filled Friday I was excited for the "predicted" calm(er) Saturday. It of course wasn't to be and with a small craft advisory hanging out we decided to give it a little time to lay down. We finally left the dock at 11 or so and got on the water. It was still pretty sloppy but calmed down a fair amount while we were out there. Very fishable, just had to drive carefully. The plan was to head offshore and get some people their first AJ's. The fish were very cooperative and readily ate the jigs we presented.
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Offshore & Patch Reefs/strong>
Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy
Have not venture offshore in awhile, but here is what I know. Bigger Tuna on the Islamorada Hump and the 409 Hump showed up. Phins are being caught on the southeast wind. Pick and choose your days. 300-600 feet. Guys got on them late yesterday, right place at the right time. Pick your sick days on the southeast wind. Few wahoo. We lost one yesterday on the edge in 130 feet on the tide change. Chewed through #7 wire. Fished 85 feet for Yellowtails yesterday, few fat flags, but the water temp. is hoovering around 73 degrees fahrenheit. Few sails cruising the edge. Kingfish bite was on with the cold.
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Lower Keys Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71
The offshore bite is there, but not rock solid. Wahoo have been caught but not in any serious numbers. The tunas are out as well but it seems the most reliable bite is coming from live chumming early in the morning. I've been playing around with the early tarpon on light tackle that have been showing up and they've been pretty co-operative. As long as the wind is from the north it's pretty nice out front. Here are some pictures of a baby goliath we got on the reef, a nighttime tarpon release, my good friend Capt. Joe and his recent wahoo catch, and a picture I like that I took of bahia honda today.
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Staying Busy in Islamorada
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
We've had some great fishing down here in Islamorada this week. Today we had a beautiful catch of mutton snapper and kingfish. The kings haven't really shown up too good this winter, but today we had a nice bite of fish from snakes all the way up to 30 pounds. We also caught some really nice muttons. Both the kings and muttons were taken on live cigar minnows. If anyone wants to know where we caught them, all of the muttons were caught right in the corner of the mouth. There's also been some really nice dolphin lately. This 46 pound bull was caught along with a 27 pound cow on friday in about 250 feet of water.
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Patch Reef Windy Day
Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy
Got out this morning with Capt. Troy and Capt. Jason to do a little windy day patch reef fishing. Kept 2 Nice Muttons for dinner. Bite did not let up. Lost a few mystery fish. Good day.
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Muttons in the Tortugas
Florida Sportsman member: rwood
We caught a lot of muttons, blackfin tuna, red grouper, had a sailfish on the line, kingfish and more. Incredible trip. We left Key West at 7:30am and got to our first spot at 9am. First spot was good with a couple of muttons. We then moved to another spot that was solid action. At one point one of us was fighting a sailfish, another was fighting a blackfin tuna and the other was hauling in a mutton[...]
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Mutton Snapper off Tavernier
Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy
Got a late afternoon start today so I only had a couple of hours to get some fishing in before the cold front pushed through, did not feel like chasing phins. Decided to stay in close & look for mutton snappers and groupers. Had one dead bonito for bait. At about 2:30 PM the fish fired up, caught two heavy lifters. After putting the second one in the box, it was time to go as it was starting to get ugly looking off towards the west, not to mention the Bonito meat was gone and the Cudas were thick around the boat. [...]
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Dolphin & Blackfin Off Tavernier
Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy
Grabbed 3 conventional rods & 1 spinning rod today, no ballyhoo rigging. Just going fishing. Keeping it simple paid off today. Fish were chewing. Got to love the Southeast wind in December. We were working a weedline that had been picked through pretty good early in the day by other boats, spotted a lone frigate bird about 2 miles off the weed line, set the course, then hooked a tuna under the frigate then up came the dolphin. All the drags started screaming. Had a serious fire drill going on, but it was a hell of a lot of fun! The fish did not want to stick around the boat, so we stuck under the Frigate bird for another 2 fish then started to move back in, had enough fish. Caught 5 at 2:00 PM, that was a enough for us. [...]
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A Bit of Tavernier Patch Reef Action
Florida Sportsman member: Augie3000
Fished a patch in 15 feet, inside of little conch reef using shrimp and ballyhoo plugs. Caught a few short muttons around 10-12 inches, a red grouper about 1 inches, a couple keeper yellowtails and this pretty nice short black too. We only fished for a little over an hour at this spot and there was good action. I'm sure there were some keeper groupers down there we just didn't find them. Water was very clear, light winds under 10 mph from the ENE , and almost flat calm with a tiny bump. Very light current.[...]
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Thanksgiving Dry Tortugas Trip
Florida Sportsman member: kilsong
My fishing report might be different from others because I concentrated on jigging on this trip testing/experimenting tackle as I own a tackle shop specializing in jigging and popping.
I am an addicted grouper jig fishermen and I knew I could catch many groupers on jigs on the trip.
But I really wanted to catch black grouper on jigs as I haven't done it before. Also, I wanted to catch mutton snapper on jigs and figure out what kind jigs work best for them. But, the most important objective of this trip was to know whether jigging actually scare off mutton snapper as some mutton snapper bait fishermen claim [...]
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Patch Reef Muttons
Florida Sportsman member: TavernierGuy
Wind was gusting pretty good from the North early Friday. Did not want to mess around chasing Sailfish offshore as my guests just wanted to bend the rod & catch dinner. Set up in 90 feet, but sea sickness took its toll shortly after the hook was set. Went with Plan B and hit a couple of my favorite patch reefs and rockpiles in 15 feet to 20 feet of water that hold nice snappers in the winter [...]
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Fat Keys Muttons
Florida Sportsman member: flagfishing
Started of with a beautiful day with winds under 7 mph. Joined some friends for a day of bottom fishing with Captain Jack with Two Conchs Charters. He put us on a reef and we hit the mangroves and yellowtail snapper. Then we headed out to deeper waters for the big boys. We caught four fat mutton snapper to complete the day. Thanks Captain Jack for a great outing!
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Big Pine Reef Report
Florida Sportsman member: fyrdriver
We headed out Saturday afternoon before the winds started on Sunday. My family got a couple hours of fishing in. Caught tons of smallish yellows, regardless of where we anchored. Can't complain about the bite though, it was constant, just drop and reel up. Although the only notibles were a 19-inch mutton, 18-inch mango and a 24-inch grouper, we had a great time. And yes, my son outfished me again, he got the grouper all by himself [...]
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Dry Tortugas Fishing Adventure
Florida Sportsman member: cudaman
It was going to be a mixed jigging trip and bait trip. We had planned what worked for us last year, no bait in the water until we finished jigging. It worked at the beginning but later on we seemed to have gone in our own individual plans to get the fish to bite. We all had mixed jigging and baits at the same time and it worked ok. Jigging didn't impair fishing with bait and fishing with bait didn't impair jigging. Dead bait worked better by switching to different baits as often as the bite slowed down [...]
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Big Pine Reef Report
Florida Sportsman member: fyrdriver
My son and I went out to Big Pine reef area on the 30th for some yellowtailing. The forecast said 1 to 3 but really was 2 to 4 and wind chopped (they were way off with the wind forecast too). I aimed a little shallow because I wanted my son to catch lots of fish and have a good time, so we ended up in about 50 feet of water. Right now there are tons of ballyhoo in the area, so when we started chumming they were everywhere [...]
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Daytime Swords off Islamorada
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
We've had some great fishing down here in Islamorada especially this past weekend. On thursday the 20th we started the weekend out with a swordfish trip and had a great day bringing 2 swordfish back to the dock. The current was ripping out in the deep, but the bite was on with 3 bites on 3 drops [...]
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Lower Keys Reef Trip
Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71
Headed out for a brief trip to the reef Saturday after finding a break in the weather. Did some bottom fishing and found the usual snapper/grouper suspects willing to cooperate. My buddy Jack who was yellowtailing on straight 10lb got a solid hit from a mystery fish. We all suspected it was a yellowtail that had gotten cuda'd but we hadn't seen any tell tale cuda' signs yet. Once we finally saw the fish as it shot to the surface we were all pretty surprised to see a cobia.
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Groupers and Muttons off Key West
Florida Sportsman member: snappersnatcher
Hey guys! Fishing started with a 7 hour ride, way west. We dropped our first baits and it was on, bites right away. I thought for sure it was on, but I thought to soon, the bite shut off for a little bit and then sharks started to turn on. After some sharks, we made a move and we started to pluck some more muttons. The trip wasn't on fire but if you put in time on the rail you managed to do well. Goggle eyes were working well, as well as ballyhoo [...]
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Keys Offshore Smorgasbord
Florida Sportsman member: INTREPID377
For those of you that have read my reports you know it's usually dolphin, dolphin, and the occasional dolphin. This one will be a little different. We fished Friday and Saturday and here's what we found.
We spent most of our time between 350' and 750' (10 mile to 16 miles) and conditions were similar over that entire spread. The dominant theme is birds and tunas, LOTS of birds and tuna [...]
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Big Sword out of Islamorada
Florida Sportsman member: syxx
Well everything seemed to settle down after the minimal tropical storm we encountered last week. The weather has been been very good, with moderate to light winds in the 5 to 12 knot range for the most part. The mahi bite has still been fair the past few days. If you find the right piece of debris (which holds bait and keeps the mahi around), your day can be made, which happened on the Catch 22 a few days ago. They found a piece of bamboo and caught 50 mahi off it to 12 pounds!
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Labor Day Weekend in Marathon
Florida Sportsman member: gatormonroe
We were down for the long weekend and decided to try fishing three different ways on the three different days.
Saturday was a little choppy for my son, so we started off on a patch reef. We caught quite a few small snapper and grouper and kept a decent mangrove and a couple of grunts. Before you laugh, try it. Grunt is excellent. There just isn't much meat on them.
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Key Colony Flag Yellowtails
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
Today, I was out of Key Colony, with a family that wanted to fish for yellowtails. They rented a house there and didn't know the area well, so we started by going to a spot where I've caught many tails and some bait with a previous customer with his family. I moved around and anchored near and all we caught where some bonitos, so we moved on and tried a few more spots [...]
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Trolling off the Islamorada Humps
Florida Sportsman member: Mako my Day
Made a trip offshore from Tavernier creek today, stopped at the Islamorada hump and trolled up a few Tuna, then headed out to look for the elusive Mahi Mahi. We managed to find a huge school of peanuts, but no keepers. The wind picked up a bit for the ride in this afternoon, made a couple of quick drifts for grouper, but no takers. All of the out of towners caught a fish, and came home with smiles, so a good day, topped off with a plateful of seared tuna and a cold cerveza [...]
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Blackfin off the 409 Humps
Florida Sportsman member: expedition
Late post , we were actually down on the humps last weekend on the 12th, what a great day we had, got 9 nice blackfin tuna. Never even saw a dolphin or any sign, lots of birds and tuna schools on the way to the humps but we could not get them to eat, we tried several schools [...]
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Tavernier Bottom Report
Florida Sportsman member: miamimutton
Today's trip was out of Tavernier, The ocean was nice with smooth conditions, we ran out to 70 feet and the current was slow to the north, the fish did not want to show very much, I started with a demo and got one tail but, the bite was too slow and far so we moved on to another spot in 82 feet and I noticed a commercial boat near by he was a friend of mine [...]
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Marathon Patch Reef Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: captdallas2
With all the lobster and spear fishing reports I just had to add that you can actually catch fish hook and line in the Florida Keys. With a weak current up the anchor line, the 'tails developed lock jaw after a couple were boated so we shifted to patch fishing. The Mangrove was about 25 inches and the Red grouper 22 inches. The mutton was just legal, but Tom seemed pretty happy to invite it home for dinner.
We lobstered Monday and Tuesday. A bit rough for my boat to do much else but we did get some nice snapper with some help from CaptDallas2. Then bit a little Sunday afternoon [...]
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Full Moon Snapper Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: Trollaltdelete
The plan was to do some spearfishing and then hit the reef for full moon snapper fishing. On the way out back we dropped the pinfish traps and then since we had a youngin on board, we hit some shallow water for some hog hunting. We saw lots of them, but only small ones. I did see one big one in the deeper water, but I was out of air when he appeared and he was not sticking around [...]
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Lower Keys Bull Dolphin
Florida Sportsman member: fyrdriver
Kinda' new to the forums, but I decided to post our report from yesterday. Trolling off Big Pine we found some nice weed patches and birds in about 600 feet, but only got a couple throw back dolphin early. At about 11:00 we hooked up with this bull in about 550 feet in some scattered weed. He made a few hard runs but in about 10 to 15 minutes we were able to gaff him!
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Key Largo Blue Marlin
Florida Sportsman member: releasegear
Went out with Capt. Geoffrey Campbell on the Sweetwater. Headed out to 600 feet but didn't see much action. Decided to go back to 400 feet where we saw a nice weed line. As soon as we get there we see a big splash, looked like a marlin, but not 100 percent. We had a chin weighted ballyhoo back deep on a 20 pound outfit, she hits hit twice and lets go, but on the third time she's hooked. Took two and a half hours to get her boatside for pics and release [...]
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Marathon Mixed Bag
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
Today we went out of the Channel Five Bridge and headed south. My customer said he wanted big fish, he didn't want quantity he wanted quality, so I changed my original plan since he was with his kids. I was going to get them in an easy catching frenzy of tails, so I changed to a flag spot in deep water where the bottom holds unstoppable groupers [...]
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Family Fishing in the Keys
Florida Sportsman member: releasegear
Hi, last week took the family out for a short trip with Captain Geoffrey on the
Sweetwater. We only fished for 2 hours (storms were coming) but had non-stop snapper action and great conditions. Kids had a blast!
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Dry Tortugas Grouper Diggin'
Florida Sportsman member: Yellowtail 23
Been trying to post our trip for a couple of days now. I think I broke the code on posting pics. We'll see in a few lines. After a ton of planning and prep, we finally set a date for our trip to the Tortugas. Crew consisted of myself, son-in-law Matt and a former Chief of his in the USCG, also named Matt. We'll call him Chief for the remainder of the post. Chief just got back to the keys from the panhandle and brought his beautiful new toy, a 27' Walk around Grady! [...]
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Miami Mutton Marathon Vacation
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
I've been on vacation, doing what I like best, fishing with family and friends. We went out after all the storms and fished for mangroves at night and got our limit of 20 in 1 hour and ran in quickly with another storm coming. We took the nephews and cousins the next morning, went out and got 25 yellowtails. These fish where flags [...]
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Dry Tortugas Fishing Bonanza
Florida Sportsman member: bassjedi
Headed down to Key West on June 24 ready to do some fishing. I had never been there before and was excited to get some new species. Unfortunately the weather was not cooperating and I had to sit at the dock June 25, 26, and 27. Finally on the 28th I was able to get out and fish. I hopped on the Allison Jane out of Key West with Captain Steve Sanchez. Captain Steve has been fishing there his whole life and it showed [...]
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Key West Offshore/Nearshore
Florida Sportsman member: Got TA Go
In general, as we got closer to the full moon...the bite got tougher. Last Friday there were tuna all over the place, but it was tough to get in front of them and get them to bite. Finally did and got a double on the skippies on a Rattle Jet in the way back position and on a ballyhoo/skirt combo in close. Dolphin were tough too, ate the blue Rattle Jet mid spread [...]
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Nice Bull off Summerland
Florida Sportsman member: Death From Above
Ran out to the wall looking for dolphin and tuna. The dolphin have been scattered but we manged this one around 5 miles past the wall under a couple of birds. Hit a rigged ballyhoo on a blue and white Island lure. We had a big Boone bird teaser out and that may have helped him find the bigger bait. Found the tuna schools right at the wall and caught them till our arms hurt. Purple and black were the hot colors for the tuna.
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Yankee Capt's Fishing Fun
Florida Sportsman member: cudaman
At the last minute I decided to jump on the 2 day Yankee Capts trip. I did not have much time to go out and catch bait on my own but I did look for Gogs but couldn't find them so I loaded with white bait, small runners, and dork jacks. Nilson (rare) one of my fishing buddies gave me some more bait including some pinfish and so I went on my way to the Keys [...]
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Lower Keys Offshore Report
Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71
Been taking advantage of this nice weather as of late and have fished both offshore and the reef. The offshore bite has been kind of sporadic dolphin wise, where it seems to be if you find 'em you'll kill 'em but if you don't, you don't. The skipjacks have been large and in good numbers right on and near the wall itself. 9 out of 10 pieces of debris I've found have been empty, but that 1 has been holding dolphin and tripletail. The reef is real hot right now, both shallow and deep. Tight lines.
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Dry Tortugas with Capt. Yuri
Florida Sportsman member: Fingerling
Hi all, new to the forum so here goes. Also, sorry for the late report. Headed down to the keys on Thu 6/14 for our annual Dry Tortugas pilgrimage with the famous Capt Yuri. Our group of John, Gil, Bob, Dean and myself (Frank) have gone on many trips with Yuri (this one made 9 for me) and we always have a great time. This year, Yuris' nephew Chris joined us since he was down visiting for a few months. What a great kid and pretty good fisherman too, must run in the genes [...]
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Offshore of Marathon
Florida Sportsman member: chompchomp
It's Saturday morning, and the same old story's really getting old. Small craft advisory yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. Yesterday we fished really hard only to boat three mahi. Found the first one under some birds just beyond the reef and thought it might be one of those days when we find the fish inside, but we ended up having to run 23 miles out to find birds.
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KW Offshore Grad Gift
Florida Sportsman member: Got TA Go
I had the opportunity to run offshore with a father/daughter team to go catch dolphin on Dream Catchers 32' Yellowfin Wednesday and had a blast! The trip was originally scheduled to go on Tuesday, but Capt Steve and I discussed it and decided if the pair could fish Wend it would be much better. Fortunately, their schedule allowed for the shift and it was set [...]
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Offshore of Marathon
Florida Sportsman member: chompchomp
We arrived on Saturday and will be here for two weeks. Considering the long-range forecast deteriorating from bad to worse, we decided to take a beating on Sunday. It's hard to fish when you can't stand up in the boat, but we trudged out toward the Hump, looking for signs along the way. Ten miles off, we found birds and practiced for awhile on short schoolies before moving deeper. In 650, we found a decent weedline that held a big red plastic water tank. We trolled by and a nice bull immediately slammed a skirted hoo. Though our gaff broke on the first attempt, we pulled out the backup and put the 25 pounder on ice [...]
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Yankee Capts Trip Report
Florida Sportsman member: cudaman
The morning started slowly for me, one pink muffing and since I saw Bobby hooked on an AJ I took out my toys to do some jigging and had some fun with a 50 pounder AJ that was released. What a pain they are to fight but I love it [...]
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Lower Keys Dolphin
Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71
The dolphin have definitely been around this past week. I've seen the majority of the fish in the 350-450 foot range on scattered weeds, with the tell being small birds hovering over the fish. The average size has been smaller, around 18-25 inches, but there are still plenty of keepers to be picked out. We were able to catch as many as we wanted, and whenever they'd get finicky I'd throw a plastic swimbait out and they'd get fired right back up again.
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Little Torch Mutton
Florida Sportsman member: captdallas2
Just had to post Elijah with his first mutton snapper. The current was a little off for the tails. Only put a couple in the box before the ceros and rainbow runners took over. We caught the mutton on in the channel scouting spots. Fun little half day showing them around.
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Hogs on Hooks
Florida Sportsman member: Reel Tease
Went down to the keys before the weekend started to get on some hogfish action. The day was rainy, with some bad weather rolling in early in the morning. The wind and current were not our friends that day. They were totally opposite and everyone knows how much of a pain that can be. Anyways we managed to pull up a few Hogs and some nice sized mangroves. The day wasn't the best, but was able to spend some time out with my dad and some friends [...]
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Yankee Capts Charter
Florida Sportsman member: bite my bait
We got to the mothership at 8:45 a.m., and began the process of unloading the suv and U-Haul. Then the clock hit 12 and then 12:15 and still we didn't leave. Greg has always been punctual on departure time, anyways we had a few late birds show up at 12:30 and if me and my boys didn't help them unload we would have been at the dock till 3 p.m. Anyways we leave at 1 p.m. and we heard that we were going for a long ride, we started fishing at 6:30 p.m. [...]
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Lower Keys Offshore and Reef Report
Florida Sportsman member: swordslayer71
I've been fishing a pretty even split of offshore and reef recently, and both have been producing pretty well. The dolphin are definitely "here" now, and we've been finding them from as shallow as 50ft(chasing bait onto the reef), and out to 650 ft. with consistency. The last few days the ticket was a color change in 450 feet that was very strong and full of weed/birds just due south of Looe Key [...]
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Marathon Offshore- Sailfish and Nice Mahi
Florida Sportsman member: TeamTeke
My luck changed for the better this past Saturday with folks from Boca Raton, the Rotenbergs and their friend David. We worked out from KCB in a Southeast direction staying mostly in the 450-650' range. We had a nice surprise of a sailfish that came in open ocean with the fish taking a lure without ballyhoo. Billy Bait Super Magnum in dolphin colors. Never caught a sail before on just a lure [...]
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Memorial Weekend in the Tortugas
Florida Sportsman member: mtbrider85
I have fished in Key West growing up my whole life and never made the trip out to Dry Tourtugas. So a few friends and coworkers of mine decided to plan a trip out for the holiday weekend. We left friday morning after loading up on bait, fuel, and ice. Stoped at the Sub wreck, caught a alamaco jack, and a large, what I thought was, a big grunt...but was informed it was a margate. It was the first I've ever caught. After that we went onto the reef to try spearfishing and load up on some live ballyhoo [...]
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Port Largo Tails
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
Today I went out with Carl for the 3rd time and Jeff and Tyler for the second time. We left port largo at 7 Am picked up some pin fish traps and didn't get many, so we went out to 55 feet anchored up and the current was going south and slow, Ocean was 1 foot and water was cloudy.
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Old Friends Fish the Keys
Florida Sportsman member: TeamTeke
We planned the reunion of friends from the late 1970's and early 1980's who lived in the mountains of Colorado. We were all fishing and hunting buddies from Summit County, Colorado. This is the ski country region 75 miles west of Denver- Breckenridge, Keystone and Copper Mountain. Life has taken us all different directions and careers [...]
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Keys Dolphin Report
Florida Sportsman member: CaptBill
My good friend DogDoc(Bert) and I left at noon and found a weedline in 700. Nothing active until we found a little debris and I started chunking ballyhoo while Bert jigged. He has been able to bring a school up from the depths in the past. After 10 minutes the school could be seen and we boated several schoolies on pitch bait and lures.
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Fishing the Humps
Florida Sportsman member: TeamTeke
TeamTeke had the pleasure of fishing with Dan Bloomquist and his lady friend Evamarie Buskirk from Kalkaska, MI. today on a deep offshore trip to the Marathon Hump. We got an early start and were blessed with calm seas but heavy overcast skies all day. Rain threatened throughout the day but we only had a short sprinkle in early afternoon. The air was heavy and the humidity high [...]
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Key West Dolphin!
Florida Sportsman member: Got TA Go
After taking a little trip, to New York, to take "Roll Tide" back to her homeport on Long Island I needed a fishing fix. We had planned to stop in the Bahamas for some fishing along the way, but mother nature kept the winds up...so outside of hand-lining some Trout, Lookdowns, Ladyfish and Stingrays in various Marinas...there was no fishing included in over 1,000 miles of water.
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Yuri Trip
Florida Sportsman member: Spoonman
When you have a Yuri trip booked it is hard to sleep the week before, at least for me. Particularly because the weather the week before was 4 to 6 foot seas and 15 to 20 knot winds which is hard fishing and not very comfortable. The seas the whole trip was 1 foot or less as you can see in the picture of Al with one of his Kingfish. Three of the six parties on this trip went down early on the 6th in the hopes of securing bait. Glenn unfortunately was hit broad side and his car was disable which put a wrench in the bait situation.
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Big Pine Key Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: Gamekilla
Left the house around 8 a.m. and headed out to about 150 feet and got our troll on, nothing until about 550 where we spot a white crab trap buoy. At about half mile we head that way to check it out and it is attached to what looks like a small parachute....needless to say SCORE! We notice a big triple tail on it. The area is full of dolphin but they are small...so we catch about 10 to 15 letting them all go except the couple that were not fortunate with an easy release [...]
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A Nice Surprise
Florida Sportsman member: INTREPID377
If it was possible to anchor there, I would. We didn't catch a fish outside of 500' all week and very few inside of 300'. Today most of the boats went further offshore because the weather allowed it. I heard very few positive reports on the radio. Don't give in to the temptation to run "far"[...]
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Islamorada Grouper Opener
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
After getting blown and rained out the last few days of April and Tuesday, we finally managed to get out there on Wednesday and today. The grouper season started out very good for us with limit catches of blacks and gags the first two days so far. A few of the wrecks have been an instant bite as soon as you hit bottom and they've been biting on the edge of the reef as well [...]
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Wind, Waves and a Few Fish
Florida Sportsman member: INTREPID377
Yesterday was good because the winds DROPPED to only 20 to 25 knots. We were limited in the number of lines we could troll and trolling into the seas wasn't a good idea. We made it out as far as 425' but found more action in close around 300'. At about 12 miles out we noticed a nearly one degree jump in water temperature. Not sure if the stream could be in that close (doubt it) but there was an edge there for sure [...]
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Loaded up in the Tortugas
Florida Sportsman member: duke6543
This trip was booked when we got off the boat last year so there were 360 days of anticipation for this trip. The six of us met at the boat on Stock Island and made a quick trip to Duval Street for a couple cold ones and then back to the Hog Fish Grill for a good stuffing before we loaded the boat with everything we would needed for the next four days, beer, food, tackle and more beer [...]
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Mixed Bag Reef Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: NauticalWheeler
A bit breezy for offshore (for us anyway), so we went exploring to the Marquesas and played with snappers and jacks in a couple of the channels. On the way back played with some more jacks, snappers, etc. in the channels draining the Lakes Passage. The best fish of the day was this mutton my wife caught in one of the channels. She has some mutton magic going on...she has caught several good ones over the past couple of years. She caught another nice one in the NW Channel a few days ago.
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Lots of Tuna, Mahi, and Big Amberjack
Florida Sportsman member: TeamTeke
Fished this past Monday with Matt & Jennifer Ruff from North Carolina. They wanted a Hump trip and the weather was a question mark up until the morning of the trip. Winds had been 20 knots but luckily it calmed down on Monday morning.
We got an early start at 7am leaving from Capt. Hook's Marina at Vaca Cut. It was somewhat bumpy but we averaged about 22 knots on the ride out. When we got to the Hump it was a pleasure to see that I was the first boat out there. Arriving early or staying late is what you want to do to find the tuna active and on top.
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Reef/Bar Success
Florida Sportsman member: NauticalWheeler
First day on the water in KW this year. Beautiful day...seas flat. Went out a little past Western Dry Rocks looking for yellowtail. Scouted around the reef and bar, and didn't mark any fish...at least no obvious schools. Meanwhile, saw some nice weed lines, with fish busting... false albacore/bonito and ceros mainly. We chased those around for a while and caught this nice cero probably at least 5 lb and a nice flag yellowtail under the weeds on a spoon near the surface [...]
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Key West Reef Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: Got TA Go
I've been out fishing the last few days and took the day off today to get some rest and get caught up on paperwork as well as other misc "stuff".
On Thursday, I was out fishing with the Adler family aboard their 45' Silverton (Eagle VI). We had the grandkids aboard and needed to put them on some fish before they headed home on Friday. It was blowing a little more than the kids were prepared for, so I took the safe route and took them to the North West Channel for some assured catching in calm waters.
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Keys Swordfish Impresses
Captain Kenny Spaulding, Angler Mike McIntyre
This 520-pound swordfish was caught last week on the
Caribsea out of Islamorada with Captain Kenny Spaulding. The 2-hour battle waged in 1,000 feet of water, but angler Mike McIntyre, of Ft. Myers, was finally victorious. The fish was officially weighed at Bud 'N' Mary's Marina.
The Reef and Luck
Florida Sportsman member: urbanRenewal
Vicky is down from VA visiting so we did offshore trolling the other day, trying to get her hooked up with Mahi and got skunked. The next day was diving for lobster. She found lots out there but most were shorts! Then a day of diving on Looe Key which is a can't miss proposition. We were one for three and today was the day for reef fishing [...]
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Key West Tourney Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: Got TA Go
"I guess the easiest thing to do is post some "Fish Porn" so that everyone can see the variety that was caught over the weekend during the Tourney. Keep in mind that "lines-in" was at 8:30 am each day and "lines-out was at 3:00."
Full results are posted on the
Key West Fishing Tournament Homepage.
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Quick Gulf Side Report
Florida Sportsman member: Got TA Go
Over in General...I said that I was fishing today no matter what. Seas were good, scattered rain, Strong tides (full moon), green water, not too bad and cool...Fished just West/Southwest of Smith Shoal. Caught Cobia, Grouper, Mangrove/Yellowtail Snapper, Grouper (all Reds) and various Jacks and Bluefish [...]
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Another Slammer!
Florida Sportsman member: urbanRenewal
Well, I must be living right or something ! For the second time in three days we've put a big Mahi in the boat. Two days ago it was with Dave on his boat in 275 feet off American Shoal. Today Susan and I took advantage of the great weather to head back offshore on our boat and hooked up in 575 feet just on the outside edge of the ups and down. Just like 3 days ago, it was the only hit we had all day [...]
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Islamorada Slammer Dolphin and Wahoo
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Easy
Fishing has been pretty good down here in Islamorada lately. This report is a few days old, but we had Pat and the boys from South Dakota out for 2 days late last week and managed to show them a great time. On day 1 we started out catching kingfish just off the edge of the reef on live cigar minnows which made for some fast action. After warming the guys up with our limit of kings and a nice blackfin tuna I decided to hit some of the deeper wrecks in the 200 foot range and put a few nice mutton snapper in the box [...]
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Marquesas Snapper
Florida Sportsman member: Deep Penetration
Thursday night I go through the regular routine of readying all the tackle, boat, food, and miscellaneous items. All the while, in the back of my mind, I'm constantly thinking to myself if the trailer is ready for the 160 miles to KW and if boat engines are up to the 35 miles to Tail End. Luckily, a few trips out of Miami in recent weeks had given me a little sense of security. Friday morning 3 am and we're loaded and on our way down.
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Dolphin and Wahoo!
Florida Sportsman member: Hooked Up Key West
Had a trip yesterday and today and went trolling for both to try and get some nice fish. Yesterday we managed to get some nice schoolies and lost a wahoo. Today we went two for three on wahoo. The weather was really nice both days. Scattered weeds around and the dolphin were under birds. All fish caught on Ballyhoo.
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