6/25/15 Islamorada Deep Sea Fishing Report

It's hard to believe we are already nearing the end of June fishing in Islamorada. The weather has really turned out to be pretty nice the last couple days, and the next few days look even nicer! Summer time is Mahi time and the past week we've seen some great catches and rack fulls of mahi. There's been a mixture of fish of all sizes from 2 - 40 lbs. The Islamorada Deep Sea Charter boats are finding multiple schools of fish most days, and you just have to keep going from school to school until you find the right ones. The boats have been averaging 15 - 40 fish per trip, with most of them being from 3 - 10 lbs, and a handful of bigger ones from 15 - 35 lbs. A few boats have had 1 - 3 "slammers" per trip, but a couple boats have had as many as 6 - 10! A lot of the fish have been offshore a good ways, with some boats going 30 miles, and that's why a full day is required many times! If the fish are close in you have a shot on a 1/2 day, but lately a 1/2 day fishing charter wouldn't get you where most of the mahi are.

There's still been a few "bonus" fish trolling, including a couple wahoo and 2 white marlin the past week, One on the Bn'M and one on the Catch 22. The blackfin tuna bite slowed down a little from what it was, but there's still some around so if you want some tuna for sushi or for the grill you still have a shot at getting some "footballs" around the hump.

The reef bite has been good most of the days with lots of yellowtail snapper, some mangrove snapper, a couple mutton snapper, and a few hogfish. The mangrove snapper are really going to turn on here with the full moon coming up, so keep that in mind. There's also been some barracuda around which are always fun to catch. Way offshore I've been on four swordfish trips, One trip producing 2 fish, two trips with 1 fish, and unfortunately one trip with 0 fish, although we had one close to the boat. The biggest fish was 117 lbs and the smallest was 40 lbs.

Just to put things in perspective how fishing changes over night and from day to day the picture above was when I fished with Capt. Dave on the Gimme Jimmy a couple days ago, we caught a bunch of big mahi and a swordfish. Everything worked out perfect and it was one of those days everyone onboard will remember. But things changed over night  and the next day I headed out to the same area we didn't see any big mahi and lost a couple swordfish. They call it fishing for a reason and there are no guarantees, but that's why I always say you should book two days...

Give the marina office a call at 305 664 2461 and let us find a good boat for your next fishing charter.

Tight Lines

Capt Nick Stanczyk