6-16-12 Islamorada Deep Sea Fishing Report

Summer is definitely here. There's been great catches of dolphin (mahi) the past week on almost every boat. Most of the boat have been averaging 20 - 30 fish and a few days even more. There's been quite small fish released too, which are still fun for some jumps and action even if you can't bring them all home for the frying pan. There's been a few gaffers (5 - 15 lbs) and a couple slammers (20 + lbs) on the each day as well. Some of the boats have been catching some "football" blackfin tunas, but we haven't really had the live bait to try for the bigger tunas which were around last week. The bottom fishing has still been producing some tilefish and a couple nice snowy grouper as well. We took advantage of the calm weather on the BNM the last few days for some day time swordfishing. I had Rolf all the way from Australia here to knock off a Broadbill Swordfish from his royal slam (all the billfish species). The first day was tough but we managed to catch and release a juvenile sword around 40 lbs. The next day started much better. On the first drop Rolf caught his dream fish, a 173 lb broadbill. He then released two more swords to finish the day. The Next day with a different group we also caught a nice 183 lb broadbill swordfish which made some spectacular jumps. Yesterday the Relentless released a swordfish and the Catch 22 boated a 120 lb swordfish. The Gon Fishin V had the nicest catch of dolphin with a handful of gaffers and a nice 25 lb bull.