7/2/15 Offshore fishing report for Islamorada

A lot of Offshore boats fished the last week of June and the first couple days of July here in Islamorada. We had some great dolphin (mahi) fishing about a week ago, but it did get a little tougher the last few days. The weather was calm the last few days in June, which is partially why the dolphin fishing slowed down a little. It should pick back up after the full moon here in July,  and the steady wind we have this week should help too. Most the boats still did decent on their charters, but there were a few days where some of the boats caught lots of mahi, but unfortunately they were all undersize. The boats have been finding multiple schools of fish, but finding the right size ones has been the ticket. Overall the boats have been average 10 - 25 legal fish. We've seen a couple slammers on the dock every day as well, including some big "Bullheads" over 40 lbs. Some days you might catch schoolie dolphin most the day, and then all of a sudden a big pair of slamers suprises you and you catch that dolphin of a life time!

The blackfin tuna bite has been on and off at the humps, but the last couple days the bite seems to be getting more steady. Back on the reef the yellowtail snapper bite has been very good. The Miss Islamorada has been limiting out on yellowtail snapper on most of their trips lately too. Today they had over 300 yellowtail snapper and the day before over 200! There's been a couple mutton snappers mixed in and the mangrove snappers are biting in certain areas as well. Way offshore I've been on a handful of day time swordfish charters and we've been fortunate to land between 1 on every trip, with one trip producing 2 fish. We tagged and released a couple of the smaller fish and kept a few of the bigger fish up to 135 lbs. One day we also did some "deep drop" bottom fishing to mix things up and Capt. Scott put Derek and Andy on 2 very large golden tilefish, weighing in at 30 and 36 lbs! We don't catch many of them here, so it's always nice to catch something different.

Whether you want to go offshore chasing dolphin (mahi) , or stay on the reef for action with snapper, give the marina a call at 305 664 2461 and let them find you a great charterboat!

Capt. Nick Stanczyk