Happy Thanksgiving and Mid November Reef fishing report!
Thursday, November 23, 2017 at 08:44AM Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!
Time is flying by as We are already past the 3rd week of November 2017 here in Islamorada at Bud n' Mary's Marina. The property continues to get cleaned up and the outside dock is getting fixed up more and more every week since hurricane IRMA. We have all of our motel rooms and ocean front house available for accommodations and we will have our houseboats ready to rent next month! Most of the offshore boats at the marina have been fishing the reef and wrecks the past week, and will continue to do so the next few months. There's been a little bit of everything caught while livebaiting and the bottom bite has been steady. The boats have been picking away at the sailfish, not a ton around the last week, but a lot of boats have had 1 - 2 releases per trip. We should get another good push of them any day like we saw a couple weeks back. There was also a couple schools of cobia found, which is early for them, so it was a nice surprise!!!
Other fish that have been eating the livebait have included kingfish, a few blackfin tuna, a couple mahi, barracuda, sharks, and more! On the bottom the yellowtail snapper bite has been very good most days, although yesterday the current was hardly moving and made for tough conditions. We've seen some really nice mutton snapper, mangrove snapper, and a few grouper as well. We can keep grouper until the end of December, so now is a perfect time to go bottom fishing!
Way offshore I swordfished one trip last week and we got one bite at the end of the day and put a keeper in the boat. One bite separates the good days from the slow days while swordfishing. This is usually prime time so I'm not sure why the bite is slower than it should be, but hopefully we start getting multiple shots per day soon!
Give the marina office a call at 305 664 2461 when you're ready to book your Islamorada Fishing Trip and we'll set you up with a great boat and crew! We also have motel rooms available!!!
Tight Lines,
Capt. Nick Stanczyk
Reader Comments