9/20/15 Mid September Offshore fishing report

I was out of town for the past 10 days, so just now getting a chance to update everyone on the recent offshore fishing in Islamorada in September. It sounded like some windy and rainy weather last week for a few days, but the last couple have been very nice. The blackfin tuna bite has been on fire lately! The boats have been catching lots of live pilchards and then chumming the tuna up around the humps and catching them on spinning tackle. The fish are averaging 4 - 20 lbs, with a few over 25 mixed in. There's also a few skipjack tunas mixed in as well. The mahi bite has been decent most days and a couple days some of the boats found giant schools of "gaffer" size fish from 5 - 15 lbs. A couple of the boats limited out on mahi with as many as 30 - 40 fish. The tuna bite should remain strong into the Fall months, but having lots of livebait will be the key to success. I'm sure we'll be able to catch a few on the dead bait and artificials, but when you are throwing the live bait over and the fish are behind the boat in a feeding frenzy it's pretty exciting. I think we'll see some decent mahi fishing in the near future, but we are nearing the nearing the end of the usual season so I'm not sure how much longer it will be consistent for. We do have boats fishing most days so I'll keep you updated. If you want to avoid the big crowds of people on the water now is a great time to fish so give the marina office a call at 305 664 2461 and we'll set you up on a charter! The Miss Islamorada is still out of commission for a while for yearly maintenance, but it should be up and running in a 2 - 3 weeks.

Tight Lines,

Capt. Nick Stanczyk