6/10/15 June Deep Sea Fishing in Islamorada
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 at 04:42PM We've had some gorgeous weather here the last few days while deep sea fishing in Islamorada. Winds have been 5 - 10 knots, with calm seas. We had a few passing showers, but overall really nice. The majority of the charter boats have been on the hunt for mahi (dolphin fish). These have been full day charters for the most part, and overall the fishing has been pretty good. A few days have been tougher (like today for some of the boats), but that's why its called fishing! Most of the boats have been average 10 - 25 fish, although some boats haven't found them on a few days. Fishing for mahi can be hours of boredom trolling around looking for working birds, floating debris, and just fish swimming, and then all of a sudden if you hit the right school you might fill your cooler in one stop! The fish have been from 3 - 15 lbs for the most part, with a few nice slammers in the 25 - 38 lb range. A lot of boats have got in on the tuna action on the hump, mostly blackfins in the 3 - 7 lb range, although I did see a 20 lber hanging up yesterday. On the bottom there's been some big amberjacks up to 50 lbs, on both bait and vertical jigs. On the troll we've seen a couple wahoo still and a few billfish. Yesterday the Reel McCoy released an estimated 250 lb blue marlin, a few days prior the Cloud Nine released a big 80 lb white marlin, and today the Catch 22 released a sailfish. You never know what will bite when you're trolling offshore Islamorada. A couple boats did some deep dropping the past week and we saw some nice snowy grouper (which you're allowed one per boat), and a couple suprise Golden Tilefish. Unfortunately Blueline tilefish closed today for about the next year, but hopefully we can get the fisheries to come to their senses and make an adjustment before that. Back on the reef the yellowtail snapper bite has been decent when the current and wind have been the same direction, and there's still some mangrove and mutton snappers. I fished four swordfish trips the past week here and we got fish on three of them. The Catch 22 fished one trip as well but reported no bites. One of my trips produced 2 fish and the other trips produced 1. About a week ago though we got another monster swordfish that weighed 434.5 lbs! It was our only bite that day, as we were winding it up to call it quits, and the big fish struck. If swordfishing is on your bucket list the next few months should give you a good shot.
Tight Lines,
Capt. Nick Stanczyk
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