Nov. 20th, 2010:

Wow, how time flies. In the last 2 1/2 months I did not realize it’s been so long since I did an update. We have been doing a little bit of everything: offshore and inshore. It has been the typical fall fishing, except this year has been a real struggle for the backcountry snook fishing. The redfish fishing has been very good though. We have been catching tarpon around the bridges and in the backcountry. One half day we caught 3 bonefish. Caught some big Spanish mackerels the other day, along with some nice trout, and one spot it was every cast for a jack. It was a great half day, because one of the guys just wanted action for his first fishing trip.

The dolphin and tunas were biting all fall real good. Some big ones up to 25 lbs. showed up about a month ago. The sailfish have started to show up in the last 2 weeks, but I have pulled my boat to do the annual work on it before a few trips around Thanksgiving.

Sept. 4th, 2010:

Same story, different day: I have not been able to get to my regular fish reports. Thank God, I’ve been too busy. We have been doing a little bit of everything, from offshore to the backcountry, and I cannot forget the diving too.

OFFSHORE FISHING:

I have wanted to catch a big wahoo in Islamorada for years, say over 40 lbs is respectable; but I never imagined we would even hook one the size we caught Aug. 16th.

Kemp Mosley from Mississippi caught this 67 lbs. “monster wahoo” first thing in the morning. We weighed it 7 hours later, so it would have lost 5 – 10% weight which would have put it over 70 lbs. This is a very large wahoo for Islamorada and even for the Florida Keys.

When this wahoo first came up behind the boat, I thought it was a small blue, but in a second I saw it was a huge wahoo. I jumped into action, quickly tying on a kingfish rig for a big live pilchard on a #30 trolling rod. He did not want that. So I had to rig a bigger bait, which meant a new leader and bigger hook. Rigs and boxes started flying around, but I got it done quickly and slapped a big bait out there.  

First time this big wahoo ate it, I let him eat it a good time then reeled down and struck as hard as I could, the bait pull – too much line stretch. I cranked it back up and he followed it up. I fed him again, but this time I put the rod in the rod holder and punched the boat to stretch the line to set the big hook. “Damn,” he coughed it up again. “Stupid Killgore,” I said to myself because I just remembered I use light drags in general, and the strike was to light to set the big bait and hook. I cranked it up again, and here comes that wahoo. I feed him again: a good drop back, set it in the rod holder, put the drag up to full (about 15 lbs. of drag I know), and punch the boat for 50 yards. Hooked up, finally.

What a nice run it made and a long fight. We played him conservatively, but I was worried about sharks. So I had the drag up a bit, but when it would run I’d back it off again. After a while, Kemp and his family were wondering, where is it? “Patience,” I said. “This is a big fish and you do not want to force it. You got to go with the drag settings.” Ten minutes later we could see the wahoo down about 100 feet.

After another ten minutes of working the wahoo up, I was not going to wait till it got to the surface for a perfect gaff shot. Instead, I reached down as far as the 8′ gaff would go while the boat was in forward. I did the the same thing in 1988 with a 542 lbs. blue marlin down in St. Thomas, because so many things can go wrong that last 6 – 8 feet up. That story will follow this one.

As I slowly moved it right behind the head for a great shot, the wahoo turned and came right toward the boat! I rushed a shot at it, got him a little, then the gaff’s butt got stuck in my t- shirt under my under arm. I couldn’t keep good pressure on it. The ladies were up my side of the gunwale taking pictures – “GET OUT OF THE WAY!” I ran up the side of the boat, keeping pressure on the fish with the gaff. I finally unwrapped it from my loose shirt, and worked down towards the middle of the gaff with the wahoo at the surface. He was barely gaffed, right through the lower jaw, up and out of the front of the mouth.

I feared, “is it enough to lift this monster wahoo over this part of my gunwale that is 3.5 feet up?” I was half way up the side of my boat in front of my consul. Well, I’m not going to risk loosing it by re-gaffing it. Now the women are behind me on the other side of the boat in front of the console – “GET OUT OF THE WAY!” I had no time to explain myself. And as I heaved it into the boat one big motion, I knew I had to jump out of the way of those razor sharp teeth, and also have no one else in it’s path. When the wahoo hit the deck, the hook fell right out of its mouth! That is why you gaff a fish at the first opportunity.

There is saying, “if a wahoo just gets close to you on the deck, he can slice you up!” There have been more mates and fisherman sliced up like that, and that I explained, I was very concerned about when boating this big wahoo. The ladies and their husbands understood.

That is the story of this great big wahoo, which took about 40 minutes to land. Here is that 542 lbs. blue marlin story and about gaffing it deep at the first opportunity.

Dr. Imhoff took his boat to St. Thomas to catch a blue marlin more than 500 pounds, and this was it. We knew it when we saw it grey hounding across the rough St. Thomas sea. I knew this was going to be “a money shot” on the gaff, and I was not going to wait till it got to a comfortable distance. I was going to reach out and hit it as soon as I could. By the way, I got a $700 tip that night on top of my $125 daily fee. That’s a great pay day for 1988.

As this fish came up on the leader, it was down deep and digging hard as the boat was in forward. As far down as I could put the flying gaff , I held it against the current around six feet down with the big gaff point trailing in the current, parallel to the fish. Once I felt the back of the fish with the bend of the gaff hook, I pivoted the gaff and went down further until the point was making good contact. I sunk it in, but not to hard to alarm the blue marlin. Almost like a live bait for a kite, right behind the dorsal fin you can see the mark in the photo.

I released the pole and I took a wrap on the flying gaff rope. The 1st mate, Steve, was on the leader, and we started pulling the big blue marlin up simultaneously. I had told Steve earlier, “once we gaff the blue marlin we got to grab the bill and get at least one half hitch on it with the flying gaff rope, preferably two if not three.” When the blue marlin broke the surface, I could see the bill was just “sitting in the bend of the hook with the barb backed into the bill” just holding the hook there! As Steve grabbed the bill so I could half hitch the bill with the rope, the hook fell out! I hitched it twice, gave the rope to Steve, and I then gaffed the blue marlin again with the second flying gaff, mid-torso. You can see both hole marks by the gaffs in the photo.

Again, gaff every fish on the first opportunity. If we had horsed this fish and alarmed it, or if I had not gaffed it deep, it could have come to the surface, shook its bill, and thrown the hook. Game over, and that 542 lbs. blue marlin Dr. Imhoff had fished a month for would have been gone at the boat.

Dolphin and blackfin tuna have been very good offshore. Every day we go out, not a problem catching some nice summer tuna an some dolphin. I got my wife out the other day for a long half day. I caught 600 pilchards, then made a scuba dive down the reef, before heading offshore to the hump.

We got to the hump, and as soon as we started throwing pilchards out we were hooking up two at a time. Three we could not stop and they got eaten by something big. We caught two ten pound tunas, one was a small yellowfin tuna. Then I rigged up my fly rod for tuna, and when I stood up there were some nice gaffer size dolphin around the boat. I through out a scoop of pilchards, and hooked a nice 12 lbs. bull dolphin on my fly rod. He made some nice 6 ‘ jumps and after he settled down, I gave the rod to Elena so I could hook another one up for her. I hooked one up for her, then switch rods again. When she got hers up to the boat for gaffing, we switched again so I could gaff the fish and put it in the box. She gave me back the fly rod, and I brought the dolphin to the boat for her to net it. Now she had a little trouble getting it in the net, but she got it.

As I was putting more ice in the fish box, Elena looks over the side of the boat and sees three 20 lbs. wahoo. I throw over another scoop of pilchards and those wahoo start darting everywhere. By the time I get a wire rig on and a bait out they disappeared. They did not stick around like the other wahoo. Later we caught a couple triple tail under a huge tree and its roots. I actually got in the water to see if there were any wahoo or dolphin hanging down deep under the tree. I dove down a few times 30 – 40 feet, but all I saw was one 4′ shark, trigger fish, and bar jacks. Coming up to the tree and all the fish around it and the triple tails was very cool.

INSHORE FISHING:

Tarpon fishing this past Aug. has been better than I expected around the bridges. Typically, we are catching smaller 30 pound tarpon, but this year every time we went out we caught a 75 to 85 pounder and hooked another or two.

Scott Lewis from Hendersonville, NC went out for a half day trip fly fishing for bonefish and baby tarpon. I caught a very nice 10 lbs. tarpon on fly along the mangrove shoreline of one of the islands out in Florida Bay. These are great fish for one of your first saltwater fish on fly. They eat the fly readily, and jump all around the boat.

Sea trout and mangrove snappers were biting very good back in the backcountry mangrove creeks, which make for a fun action packed trip for those who do not want to frustrate themselves with the challenge of sight fishing for bonefish, permit, and tarpon. We incidentally released the biggest trout I have ever seen. I’d say it was around 30,” but my client who fishes Indian River a lot said he’d say it was over 30″ and go around 6 – 7lbs. I might go with what he said. I saw it briefly, then turned to get the landing net out. We had just moved and I had stowed the net. His nephew, an avid bass fisherman, had it right at the boat and his uncle had a great look at it.

June 21st, 2010:

I’m sorry it has been two months since I did a fishing report. Thank the Lord I’ve been fishing 6 days a week, and that one day off I’m actually working harder on boats, tackle, bait, etc. I’m not going to post any photos right now because I’ve detected problems in the resolution of finished photos after resizing from my new digital camera.

TARPON:

Tarpon fishing has been great! We have caught as many as 6 tarpon for 9 hooked up and 14 tarpon striking the baits one full day trip. The largest tarpon we’ve caught measured 84″ to the fork and 42″ girth which comes out to 186 lbs. using the “fish weight formula.” That’s a big tarpon. Maybe 90″ over all length, imagine that!

We have been probably averaging 4 tarpon per full day trip. Quite a few days we’ve caught 5 tarpon. If we spent less time fighting tarpon, we would be catching more tarpon per trip. Everyone want a photo with their tarpon, so we have to fight them another 10 to 20 minutes until they are docile enough to safely handle them around the boat for pictures.

BIG TARPON on FLY at NIGHT: The perfect scenario for your first big tarpon on fly!

We have even been catching tarpon on fly at night! I may have designed a great night tarpon fly. The first time we used it, James Ovelman hooked 3 tarpon out of 4 strikes in 15 minutes of fishing. The third one he hooked he fought for 1:36 hours and had the leader in the rod tip many times for a technical release, but we never got a lip gaff in it for a photo. This was an epic battle up and down the bridge weaving through the pilings. He put out standing pressure on this fish, his first big tarpon on fly, but by no means did he play it conservatively. He has been fishing with me for years and caught big tarpon on bait and knows the pressure we got to put on them. This tarpon was BIG, maybe 130 lbs. and it dragged us through the bridge pilings at least 1.5 miles, then turned back to go maybe 1/4 mile back the other way until it finally broke us off in the pilings – Wow! This is what James has dreamed about for years, and has fish with some of the best fly fishing guides of S. FL. He was stoked even though we did not get it up for a photo.

The next night we bait fished until dark catching a couple tarpon and jumping a few, then we broke out the fly again. The tarpon were not as active as the night before, but in 40 minutes of fly fishing James hooked two tarpon and caught the perfect size tarpon on fly, a 70 pounder. It made some great jumps and runs, and we got it up to the boat for some nice photos which I will be posting soon.

Sean Borgenson came down for 2 days fly fishing. The second day we did a half day night trip, and he hooked a nice tarpon up on fly which jumped greatly and ran deep into his backing before it broke the shock tippet – bizarre. Sometimes leaders can get in the deep corner of the hinge of the jaws where it can get bit off like a pair of dikes which are not sharp.

I am very excited about this fishing for the novice tarpon fly fisherman. This could be one of the greatest ways to catch “big tarpon on fly” down here in the FL Keys. Fly fishing for tarpon here in the Keys has been getting harder and harder over the last decade due to the pressure during the day – they have seen every fly in the book. Over the years my anglers have expressed their frustration. It is one reason I moved into “live bait fishing,” I love catching tarpon. Now I know a couple guys that “fun fish” at night with fly for tarpon down here, but most of their tarpon are small (under 50 lbs. and mostly 30 lbs.). The tarpon we were hooking on my fly were all big tarpon, 70 pounds and larger. I’m looking forward to targeting this “night time tarpon fly fishing,” especially this July.

I have typically had good night tarpon fishing in July, and even during the day sight fishing with fly can be more productive because less fly fishermen are fishing and the tarpon can be more hungry. There are less tarpon moving along the flats, but they can be more aggressive to the fly.

OFFSHORE FISHING: fishing has been good for dolphin (Mahi Mahi), black fin tuna, permit, and billfish are around offshore.

This time of year 99.9% of my trips are tarpon fishing. That is what my clients want to do. I get a few trips of variety during tarpon season, but until tarpon starts to wind down I will not start to fishing for the other fish we have here, even though I love our diverse fishery and fishing for them.

The dolphin fishing (Mahi Mahi) has been very good also, and we have caught some nice fish this last April through June. One memorable catch was with Dave Hamilton and his wife on their honeymoon, and they caught “a double header” of big dolphin, “slammers,” that measured 61″ and 54″ which was a good fire drill. With a mess of small dolphin they took home around 80 pounds of fillets.

Susan Haight caught her first permit, a big, 43 pounder, off one of the local wrecks last week. It fought with every ounce of its body in that 100 foot water. It took every bit of 25 minutes, maybe even 30.

Most days I’ve been offshore we have seen 2 billfish each day free jumping including two blue marlin, one around 350 lbs. and another around 125 lbs. So I’m looking forward to hooking up that illusive blue marlin every day I go offshore.

Black fin tuna and Skipjacks have been plentiful offshore and on the humps. It is exciting to chase the schools offshore and hook up to one of these very powerful fish. Sometimes yellow fin tuna can mix in with them, and we’re always hoping to hook one of them. Also fishing one or two of these tunas live is a good idea for a shot at a blue marlin or mako shark. Black fin tuna are an excellent fish to add to the fish box, and the skipjack is a close second in food quality. Both fish have to have the blood line removed, just like yellow fin tuna, and any other fish before cooking and freezing.

INSHORE FISHING: Fishing has been good for bonefish, trout, mangrove snapper, snook, and big sharks.

We have gone bonefish fishing once for half day and boy did we chum up the bonefish that morning. We lost one bonefish and probably chummed up 2 dozen fish in a 1.5 hour period while the tide was peak. The toughest thing is to get the bait in front of the moving bonefish. They come in and leave quick. They were coming in as singles, doubles and even once 6 bonefish came in that morning.

The other backcountry trips I’ve had, we’ve fished the Everglades and had some great sea trout and snapper fishing. These were rod bending trips, and the fish were biting. Almost every cast we were hooking a trout and up to 20″ which is a nice trout.

Just the other day we were into the nice snapper for the Everglades which I was just flipping into the boat; then Jesse, Brian Connolly’s nephew, cranked up a trout that I would say was 27′ – 28″ and 5 plus pounds. I’ve honestly never seen one that big. Brian said it was bigger, because he’s caught trout that size in Mosquito Lagoon. He said it could have been 30 inches.

When I saw it I screamed, “keep its head in the water, don’t lift it up!” I turned and wrestled with the landing net to get it out from under my poling platform where I store it. I finally got it, turned and it was gone! With a shocked face, young Jesse then smiled and said, “that was the biggest saltwater fish he’d ever caught!” He was a very good bait caster, which he expertly fished all morning this old Ambassador bait caster I brought to try. He is an avid bass fisherman from Orlando area, and could cast that old reel quite well.

I’ve been wanting to try bait casters to drift live bait for snook and baby tarpon so the clients do not twist the line when they are fighting the fish. Later the twisted line will tangle in the reel or rod tip and get chaffed up or snap. If I like it I will add a few nice bait casters to my arsenal of tackle. I’m also thinking about the same principle for offshore, but logically they would be nice lever drag conventional reels.

By the way, one of my clients fished with one of my friends for snook and had a great day. They caught 7 – 8 snook up to 12 lbs. and lost just as many or more. So I’m looking forward to getting out snook fishing soon.

April 14th, 2010:

Wow! I have been getting slammed with some last minute bookings and some great fishing!

It could be a great year for tarpon! The first tarpon we caught was spectacular! It jumped at least 15 times, and was a big tarpon (at least 135 lbs.). It jumped all around the boat, almost hit the boat, even after over an hour of fighting it on #20 test.

The tarpon are about one and a half months over due. Where they start showing up in late Feb, they just started showing up first week of April. So it might be a later season where we could have great tarpon fishing all the way into late July. One year we caught 10 tarpon on July 14th, and many days that year we released 6 – 8 tarpon all the way till last few days of July.

Fishing along the reef has been great this past month. We have caught sailfish, big kingfish (up to 46″), nice black fin tuna, big cero mackerel (up to 10 lbs.), groupers, nice vermillion snapper and lane snapper for fun filled full days and half day trips.

Her first day offshore fishing she catches a sailfish and numerous king and cero mackerel.

“Half day snapper and mackerel fishing”That is a mess of vermillion snapper and lane snapper for David Nix, Kelly, and their son, Devin.

Jeff Gurski catches a nice king, and friends caught around ten others while fishing for sailfish.

Steve Williams and friend catch ten big cero mackerel up to 10 lbs. while fishing for sailfish.

Offshore fishing has been great too. We have caught numerous amberjack in the 60 – 70 pound range. While we are fishing for them, I like to have another angler on the bow jigging for black fin tuna where we have caught some nice tunas up to 15 lbs. They fight well on #30 test, and it is fun getting the bite yourself. We have also caught nice amberjacks on these jigs too, but they are in the 30 – 40 pound range, which is perfect for #30 test. The dolphin have started to show up too, but I have not fished for them because they are typically small this time of year.

Shane McDermott says these 70 pound amberjacks are good workouts while on spring break from UM’s spring football camp. He is their freshman center. Best of luck buddy!

Randy McDermott, loves jigging for those tunas on the hump while we are fishing for amberjacks. They are a fun fight on spin, and great little steaks for the grill too.

Brandon Wilson,  veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, says these 65 lbs. amberjacks are tough! Thank you for fighting for our freedom buddy!

Rebecca Kravetz, sixteen year old, came to catch offshore fish. Black fin tuna will teach you about “persistence!” She also caught numerous other king and cero mackerel. They were tearing us up for a while, as fast as I could put a bait in the water.

Tom Pennekamp takes the kids fishing. Nice lane and vermillion snappers. They caught many more kings and snapper, but we let them go.

Bay fishing has been very good too. Spanish mackerel were hot and heavy during our colder March where we were catching them as fast as we could put a bait in the water. Catching them on fly rod is great fun for the beginning saltwater fly fishermen. Big ladyfish, sea trout, pompano, bluefish, jacks, and snapper all come into the chum line for fun action on light tackle.

Big sharks on the flats are the big game of the bay before the tarpon show up, and we were ripping their lips (and removing other lost hooks when I find them) this past March. We’ve had some great days catching more than a dozen sharks and loosing just as many. Having numerous sharks swimming all around the boat trying to find our baits, either live bait or cut bait. We’ve been catching lemon sharks up to 200 pounds on #30 test, black tip sharks up to 100 pounds, and smaller sharp nosed sharks up to 30 pounds on #20 test.

The flats fishing has been very tough in March because of the cold March we’ve had, but it is just going to get red hot as the weather warms. Bonefish have been slim, but one half day charter for fly fishing I chummed up some nice 5 – 7 pound bonefish in low 70 degree water in 1.25 hours chumming. Then the current stopped so we went poling for bonefish, permit, baby tarpon, and small sharks. I’ve also gotten reports from my friends that they have been catching some nice snook in the back country, so hopefully they have not been as hurt from the cold water “fish kills” of past January as some have feared.

My wife, Elena, and I go out to catch a little mess of nice lane and vermillion snapper after my half day trip in the morning.

Can you believe what these black fin tunas are eating: sea horses, squid, and a baby “Mola Mola?”

Feb. 20th, 2010

For those of you who have noticed, I have not posted any fishing reports for awhile. I was on my annual vacation down in Costa Rica, which I take every year this time for a good reason too. The weather is so adverse this time of year, we get lots of cancellations. One of my friends was lamenting he had to cancel 75% of his bookings which were not much anyway. He swore he is going to be visiting me next year down in CR. Just a little dig at all my guide buddies here in the Keys suffering the winter chill, my wife and I were down in CR surfing, spear fishing, and drinking for weeks on end. I’ll post some photos soon. I got some cool photos of the fish I speared, mussels we got, dog we adopted, and some good times with friends.

Boy was it good to get out fishing, the boat under my feet, salt spray on my face, and wind in my hair. We returned last week and within a week I was out fishing and catching fish even in these tough, cold, windy conditions. I had a couple “Irish Blokes,” John Gleeson and Ferdinand Heyerman,  fishing two days this week offshore and backcountry. Offshore was a little slow, but they had 2 shots at sailfish that just could not catch our live ballyhoo. The current was very slow and the kingfish were not cooperating. We got a couple nice bites on the bottom rod on a wreck but failed to hook’em. We wrap it up fishing the edge of the reef for sailfish, kingfish, and cero mackerels which they caught a few cero mackerels.

The next day we ran back to Flamingo and East Cape to fish for black drum, and that paid off even though the water temperature was very cold. They caught around 20 nice black drum on #10 spin, a few nice trout, and a redfish. Hey, could we call it the “Back country, Poor Man’s, Rock Bottom, Channel SLAM!” Why not, everyone else is creating all these other versions of “fishing slams!”

Sorry, I do not think so. FISHING GRAND SLAMS should be something very hard to accomplish, like the original slams: tarpon, bonefish, and permit; or sailfish, blue marlin and white marlin all caught in “one day” – not caught over a two or three day tournament! This also has bastardized the true significance of a “Grand Slam.” It’s just sad to know there are people that believe they caught a “Grand Slam” in these tournaments. You got to feel sorry for them, they’re victims of shrewd marketing.

Anyway, these guys had a great time back in the mangroves, and they even saw a “bald eagle” on the way out on a stake in “Tin Can Channel.”

(John Gleeson with one of many Black Drums on light tackle)