3/19/17 Mid March Islamorada Deep sea fishing report

Well I thought winter was over but we had two fairly strong cold fronts move through last week. Temperatures dropped into the 50's and the wind swirled directions. For certain fish a front can help the bite, but a drastic change in conditions this time year can shut the bite off on others. We had a couple tough days with slow fishing the day of the fronts, but then things got back to normal and we saw the normal mixed bag of fish for March. The majority of the boats have stayed on the reef and there's been a few sailfish caught amongst the fleet each day, one day was in partictular was good where most the boats had 2 - 4 releases and saw some others. Sometime in the next 6 weeks we should see the "spring time tailing condition" where sailfish and cobia tail down sea on a color change, but we will need just the right conditions. The wind and current must cooperate for that to happen and it usually just lasts for a couple days. We saw a few boats cash in on the cobia the past week, finding nice schools of fish with some cobes pushing 50 lbs! That style of fishing may not feel like fishing at all since we ride around in the tower and look for stingrays without any lines in the water, but if you find the right ray and and school of cobia is on him be ready! We've seen a handful of wahoo around as well as a few kingfish. The snapper bite was good most of the week although there was a couple slower days with the current into the wind and clear water in certain areas. Out a little deeper there's been vermillion snapper and a few yelloweye snapper in the 300-400' range. The Cloud Nine also caught a monster yellowedge grouper weighing in at 37 lbs! It's one of the only grouper species we can keep right now. We've had a lot of kids out fishing with spring break which is great because we love seeing the next generation fishing! Some barracuda and sharks around too! 

Further offshore the hump was very productive a couple days with blackfin tuna and amberjack, but then one day the bite shut off and it was very slow the next few days. It's fishing and things change day to day! We are seeing a few mahi so far and we will start seeing more as we get later into spring. Way offshore the swordfish bite has been steady for most boats. On the Broad Minded we had a 137 lb swordfish yesterday, three fish from 30- -80 lbs the trip before that, and one fish around 40 lbs the trip before that. We also caught a monster DIAMONDBACK SQUID! It weighed in at 33.4 lbs!! Talk about calamari!! The indigenous charter boat caught a big 267.8 lb swordfish yesterday after a 3 hour battle! The had some shots the trip before that and lost a couple fish after 1 hour battles. 

Give us a call in the marina office to book your next Islamorada Fishing Charter and we'll set you up with the best available boat. Remember we have logding options at Bud n' Mary's Marina so you can stay right close to the fishing action! 305 664 2461

Capt. Nick Stanczyk