January 22, 2007 at 5:35 pm · Filed under Key West Flats Fishing, Florida Fishing Weekly
KEY WEST – High pressure that lingered over the Lower Keys for most of the week helped keep the fishing active.
Captain Gene Chrzanowski on the Fatal Attraction out of A and B Marina splashed his newly renovated 53- foot Davis sportfishing boat just in time to catch the tail end of a great wahoo bite.
You have to be in the right place at the right time, explained Chrzanowski.
Several boats including the Fatal Attraction were finding wahoo near the Toppino buoy in 170 to 200 feet of water. The following day some of these boats went back to the same spot only to find there were no wahoo. Instead the wahoo had been replaced by a school of sleek king mackerel. Chrzanowski tried the waters a little further west the next day and landed a 30- pound wahoo.
Wahoo take the bait and run, success with wahoo fishing is landing 2 out of 3,Chrzanowski said.
Wahoo can crash a bait with such force and run so quickly that many times the line breaks. Several boats reported hooking 20 wahoo but only came home with five fish they actually landed.
For more information on the Fatal Attraction visit their website at http://www.fatalattractioncharter.com/.
King mackerel are surely going to be the focus for the next few weeks in Key West. The 11th Annual Hog’s Breath King Mackerel Tournament starts on January 26th and this intense two day tournament will have anglers running the distance for a winning fish. Last year the winning fish weighed 66.77 pounds. Team Lured Away conquered the rough seas making the 80 mile run to the Dry Tortugas fishing grounds.
The Gulf waters have been a good bet for king mackerel and Spanish mackerel. Several of the larger sport fishing boats drag dead baits for these fish. For tournament participants it is more likely they will be slow trolling a live blue runner.
Sailfishing has improved with our slightly rougher seas during the latter part of the week. Captain Rush Maltz on Odyssea reported landing two out of five sailfish hooked. The sailfish were hooked on live thread herring.
Maltz spent some time out at the reef during the rougher days fishing for grouper and snapper. He reported catching some sizable mutton snapper and red grouper up to 14- pounds.
Duncan Connelly Jr. of Atlanta, GA certainly celebrated his 13th birthday in style. Connelly received a fishing trip from his parents as a birthday gift. For a kid whose largest fish to date was a 5- pound brown trout, Connelly was certainly amazed to see a 20- pound permit up close.
“It fought hard,” Connelly said. He had never felt the pull of a fish like this ever.
Connelly did a great job listening to Captain Justin Rea as he instructed him where to throw the live crab in order to lead the fish. Permit prove to be an absolute sucker for a live crab.
Connelly landed not one, but two permit that day. In addition he tested his fly fishing skills in several of the mullet muds landing ladyfish, sea trout and jacks on fly.
I was fortunate to get some precious time on the skiff this week. In the days preceding our latest cold snap I had the opportunity to cast at several permit with my fly rod.
Permit have to be one of the most challenging fish to hook on a fly rod yet there are professional anglers who make it look like any every day occurrence. Not for this gal. I was staring permit number three in the face just a few days ago. He ate my fly so fast that I didn’t have time to strip the line tight in time.
It was certainly great to see these permit feeding. It is very apparent that they were feeding hard because they know that in cold weather there will not be much to eat.
For more information on permit fishing with Captain Justin Rea visit his website at http://www.flyfishingthekeys.com/
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January 22, 2007 at 5:34 pm · Filed under Florida Fishing Weekly
KEY WEST – Key West rolled into 2007 in style. If you missed the conch shell dropping atop Sloppy Joe’s on Duval, or the drag queen in the high heeled shoe, you missed a good Key West style party. The real action though was lurking just offshore, south of Key West in the Atlantic.
The word of the week around Key West was wahoo. Still giving anglers a run for their money, these aggressive fish have been tearing up the waters off Key West between the Curb and Sand Key.
Captain Bennett Taylor on the Outer Limits reported good results while trolling the waters near Sand Key. “We had 15 bites, got some and lost some,” Taylor remarked.
Taylor and several other boats in the offshore fleet were trolling dead baits and hooking these wahoo on the surface.
The bite has been good but the weather proved to be a bit precarious with some higher winds. Wahoo tend to bite better around the full moon phase. This can be attributed to the stronger tidal movement and currents. They may also be on the trail of bait that is on the move from the north.
There have been more sailfish in the area this week as well. Corbett Davis of Pensacola reported that he had a few shots at sailfish with his trusty fly rod. Davis spent the day fly fishing in the offshore waters with Captain Rush Maltz on Odyssea. Maltz commented that the sailfish seemed to be more interested in the large school of ballyhoo they had corralled near the reef.
Davis reported landing several very large bonito on fly.
Captain Alex Canalejo on Showtime also had a nice catch of black fin tuna. His anglers landed four tuna up to 24- pounds, a few kingfish and released a sailfish.
Maltz and Canalejo both run light tackle charters out of Murray Marina on Stock Island.
Patch reefs and shoals throughout the Lower Keys have been teeming with good sized snapper and grouper. Yellowtail snapper fishing has been good just off the reefs south of Key West while mangrove snapper are holding in closer to shore and in the Gulf waters.
Cobia are making the Gulf a more interesting place this week. Several boats reported catching cobia on the coveted spots in close to the Lower Keys. The one key to fishing in the Gulf is either knowing a spot or two or just putting the time in to stop and analyze any variation in the bottom. Whether it is a ledge that just drops a few feet or a discernible rock pile on the bottom, give it a chance to produce.
Live pinfish are a sure bet for reef and wreck fishing. Pinfish are one of the easiest baits to catch without a cast net and keep alive in a live well. They are very hardy fish. Throwing out a live pinfish at any spot should get you an immediate bite if anyone is home. If not, give it a few tries and move on to the next spot.
Inshore fishing has given flats anglers plenty of variety this week. There is no doubt that fishing the flats in higher winds can be tough but there are ways to get around it and still get plenty of action.
This week the mullet muds were the spot to fish for just about anything. Ladyfish, jacks, sharks, sea trout and even tarpon were feeding on mullet in the backcountry basins of the Lower Keys.
Captain Tim Carlisle offered some sound advice on tarpon fishing in January. “The full moon brings the tarpon in, it’s the big push of the tide,” Carlisle said. These fish can be found feeding in deeper channels and in the many deeper basins throughout the Lower Keys. Carlisle also has found that even with some of our fast moving cold fronts, the tarpon will not go far. They may move into the Gulf for a few days and when the weather improves they will be right back in the basins.
January is not exactly the perfect time to fish for tarpon, but they are indeed a welcome sight on the flats on some of our warmer days.
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January 3, 2007 at 8:21 pm · Filed under Florida Fishing Weekly
KEY WEST – Blustery conditions may have made fishing conditions rough in our offshore waters this week but it certainly did not keep the fish from biting.
Reports of winds in excess of 30 knots made getting to the fishing grounds near the reef and offshore more difficult. Anglers and guides that braved these conditions were generously rewarded with some great fishing.
“The fishing has kind of been different,” explained Captain Mike Weinhofer. He was referring to the larger dolphin up on the reef chasing ballyhoo. This is so unusual because dolphin notoriously do not feed when there is a north wind.
Weinhofer was finding dolphin in 120 to 180 feet of water. These larger dolphin were of course mixed in with some smaller schoolies which provided some constant action for both Weinhofer on his light tackle boat Compass Rose and for many of the offshore trolling boats working the same area.
The sailfish bite has been more consistent this week and may be due to the rougher weather. Sailfish have been crashing bait on top of the reef off Key West and reports are they are in as little water as 25 feet out to 180 feet. Sailfish can be found between the reef and outer bar.
Another contender in the bite offshore is the wahoo. “The wahoo bite has been fairly consistent but not red hot,” said Weinhofer. He had spent a few days this week fishing for them with live speedos and slow trolling. Several wahoo were caught this week among the Key West fleet including a few in the 30- and 40- pound range.
Wahoo are one of the fastest pelagic species in our Florida Keys waters. They can travel at speeds up to 60 mph. This speed combined with their ability to dump line off a reel in a matter of seconds make the wahoo a very sought after game fish.
Although we have had a fair amount of black fin tuna in the area this fall they have finally started to school up on the Sub to the west of Key West. This area has a wreck we call the Sub and is in approximately 220 feet of water. Light tackle captains will anchor in a line just off the Sub and throw live bait to get the tuna up near the surface.
Both light tackle fisherman and fly fisherman enjoy this season of our Key West offshore fishing because of the tremendous possibilities. Fishing for black fin tuna can be very productive with a well full of live bait. Tossing out net fills of pilchards and in turn hooking one pilchard through the nostrils on a 1/0 to 2/0 hook with a 20 to 30 pound fluorocarbon leader will not only allow the bait to stay more alive but reducing the pound leader will increase the bite ratio. Tuna have big eyes and are sometimes hard to deceive even with a live bait. Reducing the leader to 20 pound test will get more bites but also more fish broken off if they are fought too long and wear through the lighter leader.
One drawback to the tuna bite right now is the numerous sharks present on the Sub and the End of the Bar.
Captain Tom Ault on the Time Out reported some steady action offshore with dolphin and king mackerel. “Kings were on the small side with a few decent ones mixed in,” Ault said. He’s been finding these fish in 120 to 200 feet.
King mackerel are notorious for short strikes on dead bait. Ault mentioned that even though they fish a single hook in their trolled baits, they may make the haywire twist longer so the hook is further back in the bait. Pre-rigged ballyhoo often have two hooks in each bait which is perfect when trolling for king mackerel.
Live bait fishing for kings is another story. A medium to large sized blue runner with a stinger hook in the tail section of the bait will help increase the hook up ratio with these razor toothed fish. A wire leader is always a must.
The 11th Annual Hog’s Breath King Mackerel Fishing Tournament is scheduled for January 26th through 28th. The tournament headquarters are at Murray Marina on Stock Island. For more information please visit Murray Marina’s website at www.murraymarine.com.
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