Sept. 2009:
Sept. has been a great month for me this year for both business and fishing offshore and inshore.
Offshore fishing: We have caught dolphin, black fin tuna, sailfish, kingfish, grouper, and triple tail.
I took out local Will Kennedy owner of Chillie Willie’s Restaurant and his two sons Cullen and Cody, 10 and 6 yrs old. They had entered the kids tournament at World Wide Sportsman, which is a fun tourney of half a day fishing for as many kids as possible. I was told usually barracudas and amberjacks win biggest fish, and there is an outstanding catch award for sport fish. So I told Will I know where there are some big barracudas out on the reef, and we could also catch a sailfish too, because I’ve seen a few around since late Aug. We could not have planned it better. While every one else headed out to the humps for tuna and amberjacks, Cullen caught his first sailfish winning the outstanding catch in the offshore division. They also caught 3 big barracudas, and one out of two kingfish all in a short half day (running time back to dock was part of the 4 hours of fishing). Cody won 3rd place big fish with his 23.8 lbs. barracuda on #20 test, which put up a great fight. Will got the whole sailfish battle on video, because Cody was bringing to gaff a kingfish when the sailfish ate one of the rigger baits that was out. I still had three live ballyhoo out while we were catching the kingfish, I cannot tell you how many sailfish we have caught while fighting another fish like a kingfish or a grouper.
Chillie Willie’s Restaurant in Islamorada is our favorite lunch spot. They have the “best bacon cheddar cheese burger” in Islamorada. I have tried them all. Most important is how they cook it. I like it “medium rare,” and they never miss! It is a big burger, black angus, and at least 4 slices of thick smoky bacon. Along with a great fried calamari, my wife and I split both and I’m stuffed. Of course they have lots of other great comfort food, and it’s a great “family friendly” sports bar not catering to “hardcore drinkers” but to families. They have a nice game room for the kids. It’s a locals place where captains, mates, contractors, school teachers, electric coop workers, and cops all frequent Chillie Willie’s which adds to our enjoyment there, and testifies to the quality of their food. Will, his wife Victoria, and the waitresses are very nice and make you feel like part of their family.
Black fin tuna have been numerous and of good size for this time of year. With the live pilchards, we get them busting and jumping clean out of the air right behind the boat chasing the “freebies” (the live pilchards I throw out as chum). I even caught 2 out of 3 on fly in casting just 15 minutes after catching about 20 black fins up to 15 pounds. I caught those 2 tuna while my two other friends were each catching tuna, making for fun triple header action, and a little chaotic handling the boat and landing tuna because it was just the three of us.
One day my wife and I went out scuba diving and spear fishing for a half day, leaving at 12pm.. On the way out we ran over a large school of pilchards and filled the live well with 700 pilchards, so I knew we were going for tunas after my dive.
I jump in the water and as I descend I come across a big rock with a big black Margate. I resist the urge to go after it, then I see him – a nice black grouper. He slowly hides in the rock, my heart jumps a little, I now know I have a good chance to spear it. As I approach a 15 lb. mutton snapper swims around the corner then turns to go back around. Stay on target I tell myself.
As I come up to the rock, my heart is thumping! Gun out in front of me ready to shoot, going around where he entered, I see his tail and then his back side. I take a gamble! I turn the tip of the gun around that corner to take a blind/ estimated shot at him, instead of actually seeing where I was shooting. I did not want him to see me, and spook out.
Bam! – he did not move! Did I miss? I grab the shaft, and it’s solid in him! It is a kill shot, right behind the gill plate. “Yeah!” I yell in my regulator. I had yet to shoot a grouper in two years. They are very smart. They know how to blend in to the rocks, and bolt at the right time keeping plenty of distance from you.
After lunch we ran out to the hump, and chummed up the tunas where Elena caught 15 tunas, hooking double headers. She caught one 15 lb. black fin tuna, and lost a couple others that size. We kept 7 black fin tuna and two skipjacks and let the others go. On the way home we stopped off at a lobster spot and got 6 lobsters – what a great half day! I canned most of the tuna (20lbs.) had two dinners of grilled tuna, two dinners of grouper, one of lobster, made a huge grilled tuna fish salad for the week, and froze the rest for my parents.
Had a few days where I took clients out dolphin fishing, and caught all the heavy lifters and gaffers that we wanted along with a few black fin tuna to start the day. One day I chummed along side of two of my friends, and those tuna never left our boats. We did a power drift up to 1.25 miles from the hump and those tunas stayed with us for over an hour of fishing. Usually, you got to keep moving up current of the hump and go past the fish getting them fired up to eat the livies on the surface. I guess we just had so many pilchards going into the water the followed us. When one of my friends took off to go dolphin fishing, they started to dissipate.
Inshore fishing: has been just as good for snook, tarpon, bonefish, permit, and mangrove snapper too.
Dave Dekker and Jeff Maron of Palm Coast, FL had a great couple days fishing. They came down for one day offshore, which they caught all the dolphin they wanted – they actually said “we’ve had enough!” But they really wanted to fish for bonefish and permit, and did we also have a great day bonefish fishing. We started out chumming, and caught three bonefish on jigs: 5, 2, 2 lbs. We then went looking for permit but had no luck, but it was raining and cloudy with poor visibility. That was disappointing because the week before in the same spots I saw over one hundred permit from singles to triples, to schools of 15 to 30 permit in 2.5 hours fishing. My clients had one bite, and missed it by “Bill Dance’ing the strike.” Unfortunately they never saw any of the permit they were casting at, so no other bite occurred. So I told Dave and Jeff lets go look for some tailing bonefish, and did we find the tailing bonefish.
They caught 3 more bonefish sight casting to 5 different schools of tailing bonefish up to a dozen or so in each school. They were from 4 – 8 lbs. The big one did not even make the longest run, but fought closer to the boat staying with the other bonefish that had spooked but not gone far. One of the smaller bones made a 130 yard run across the flat which really impressed these two “bull redfish” fisherman.
Jeff Dahl from Wyoming had a great first 2 days saltwater flay fishing the back country for tarpon and snook. He did not catch any of them, but he hooked some nice fish and had plenty of bites. The first fish he hooked was about a 5+ pound tarpon and he got two jumps before it got off. He jumped another one off that day, and jumped a snook off too. He had numerous other bites from snook and tarpon, then at the end of the day he want to see how it was done, so I caught one and brought it to the boat so he could see it and take a picture. They next day we fished 3/4 day the same thing before his wrist gave out from the casting. Again he had numerous bites, including one big snook that just exploded on his popper coming almost half way out of the water. All these fish were eating poppers or surface streamers, so every bite was on the surface. First day there were a lot of baby tarpon, and the second day was mostly snook bites. The last two hours we fished mudding rays to catch jacks or redfish, but the rays had lots of small snapper on them. He caught a couple snapper and missed a couple jacks, but at least he got the experience in sight fishing and saw how different it really is from his trout fishing. On the way home I convinced him to stop and fish for small sharks, even though he was very tired with the heat and casting for two days. We had a few shots at lemon and bonnet head sharks, which he missed a bite by using the old trout strike of lifting the rod tip. This is one of the biggest handicaps all trout fishermen have, and also dealing with a moving target. To cap it off as we were polling off the flat we came across a tailing permit up on the flat. What a classic sight! He said he cannot wait till next year.
Rick and James Ovelman from Miami came down for a couple days of snook and tarpon in the back country. Both days Rick caught a tarpon on fly and thoroughly enjoyed it. We talked old stories about fishing with legendary Bill Curtis, which was the last time he caught a tarpon on fly many years ago. Now he would rather catch smaller fish. James had numerous shots at some big tarpon in the 40 – 80 pounds for about 2 hours the first morning. We found them laid up and rolling in one of the basins back there. James and Rick caught numerous snook back there, and the last day they may have caught close to 15 and missed just as may bites. James was on it for a while, almost every cast he was hooking a snook. All of them were just under the slot, but we lost one at the boat that was definitely a keeper. Once again we had a great couple days fishing together, they have been fishing with me for years now, always for the big spring tarpon with live bait. But they have always talked about back country fishing, and I’m glad they finally got down here for this Sept. fishing.
Next James talked about canoe trip, but Rick still seems a little concerned, especially after the 10′ crocodile that was hanging around while we caught snook.
