3-16-13 Mid March Offshore Fishing in Islamorada

It was a beatiful day here in the Florida Keys. The winds were 8 - 14 knots most the day and the sun was out with temperatures in the mid 70's. The offshore fishing in Islamorada has still been decent with a variety of fish being caught. The sailfish bite has been a little off for sure, with no release flags flying today, but there was 4 sails released yesterday from the offshore charter boats, the Finnster, Pretty Work, Relentless, and Redfish each released one during the course of the day. There has been a handful of mahi around the past two days as well, not a ton but about 1/2 the boats hit some just outside the reef. The Predator hit the biggest school yesterday keeping about 15 mahi, decent size schoolies, so hopefully they will move in for the spring time fishing. They also had some yellowtail snapper. There has been a few cobia around each of the last two days as well, the Reel McCoy had a couple legal fish yesterday, the Strictly Business had a 30 lber, the Gold Digger had a limit up to 35 lbs, the Relentless released a few under size fish, and today the Pretty Work released some small ones and one nice one pushing 40 lbs. The king mackerel bite was fair the last two days, although the live bait has been a little tough. The Kalex had a good catch of kings today including a few nice fish up to 25 lbs, they also had a couple mahi. The other boats that tried for them had a couple a piece for the most part. The Islamorada Shark Fishing has stil been productive too, the Bn'M released a 200 lb bull shark today, they also had a bucket full of lane snapper and porgy for dinner. Most of the boats have also been catching and releasing some barracuda for action through out the day as well. The yellowtail snapper bite is still pretty good, the Fearless and Finnster both did 1/2 day trips today and had a bucket full for dinner. The Redfish went daytime swordfishing today and lost a big fish early, but then stuck it out and caught a legal 60 lb fish after that. Great Job Guys! The Gon Fishin V also had a great catch of tasty "deep drop" fish, (fish we catch on the bottom in 400 - 600' of water), which included blueline tilefish, rose porgy, and a snowy grouper (which is legal to keep this time of year, not to be confused with our more common shallow water grouper).