9/29/15 Islamorada Deep sea fishing report for late September
Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 07:55AM The good fishing has continued the past ten days here in Islamorada. Everybody keeps saying "I thought this was the off season?" What they don't understand is that it's the off season for tourists, not the fish! We've seen some great catches of blackfin tuna from 4 - 30 lbs on the humps. The live bait was plentiful the past week, so the boats have been chumming the tuna up and catching them on spinning rods.
There's also been some hard fighting skipjack tuna mixed in, and if you want a big pull there's been some sharks in the 100 - 300 lb class. The mahi bite has been pretty steady overall, although a couple days were a little tougher. Some boats have limited out on mahi and had as many as 30 fish, but I would say they boats have been averaging 10 - 20 fish. The mahi have been from 3 - 20 lbs.
The swordfish bite has been steady too. Capt. Travis on the Indeginous charter boat went 1 for 2 one trip and 3 for 3 another trip. The fish were from 20 - 60 lbs. I was a guest captain for a tv shoot with George Poveromo early last week and we had a great couple days. We caught over 20 Blackfin Tuna, the biggest being 21 lbs, a pair of beautiful queen snapper, a handful of mahi, a 17 lb barrelfish, and a 75 lb swordfish. The episode should air early in 2016.
Yesterday Capt. Dave on the Fishwife ventured offshore with the calm weather and they hooked an estimated 275 - 300 lb blue marlin while trolling for dolphin (mahi)! They fought the fish on a 30 lb stand up rod for 3 hours and then got the release! They were able to get some great pics of the fish around the boat. It goes to show you you never know what you'll catch when fishing off Islamorada.
I think the tuna bite will remain steady as long as the live bait sticks around, and we are nearing the end of the consistent mahi fishing, but with as warm as the water is I think we'll see them for a little while longer. Give the marina a call at 305 664 2461 and let us set you up on an Islamorada deep sea fishing charter!
Capt. Nick Stanczyk
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