Island Time

Report Date: May 27, 2008

In the last report, I mentioned that we would be heading to the Bahamas for a few trips and we went to Bimini twice. We didn’t have absolutely banner trips, but we did catch fish and we had great people on board both times. The fishing on the first trip was a little bit slow. We should have trolled all day because the guys that went trolling instead of bottom fishing came back with some impressive catches of big dolphin (up to 68 pounds) as well as some blue marlin releases. Our second trip we went to one of my honey holes and found some incredibly big yellowtail snappers. These snappers were all of 3 to 5 pounds and would pull drag on 20 pound outfits. We also did well with the cero mackerels. We tried for the muttons up front of Bimini but didn’t stay at it for a long time. All in all though, good people, good weather and being in the Bahamas made it all worthwhile. I am heading back to the Bahamas in a few weeks and will be there for the better part of June. I still have some opening for June and plenty of openings in July and August, so if you want to experience some island fishing and island time, let me know so we can set it up.

On this side, the fishing is actually very good. There are still a lot of sailfish around and we have had a steady kingfish bite every morning and late afternoon. Our best day sailfishing we caught 8 out of 12 sails. I had a good customer on board that has fished we me a lot, and he even commented on this being our best sailfish trip and it’ s not really prime sailfish season either. Also there have been quite a few blackfin tunas around, especially in the late afternoon. One of my friends caught 14 blackfins in one afternoon, and I heard of a few others with 8 and 10 blackfins per day, so we are really seeing a big push of these fish move into our area.

There have not been a lot of dolphin reports. I think with fuel approaching $5.00 a gallon at the marinas, many are not running out into the Gulfstream looking for them. On both our crossing to the Bahamas, we didn’t see much debris or bird activity in the Stream, and the debris we did find, only held tripletails on it. No doubt though, the dolphin will show up and as soon as they do, many will hed out in search of them.

I did do one nighttime swordfish trip and we had no luck. We had a perfect drift with good baits, but never had a bite all night. I did hear that the daytime sword bite has picked up so I am rigged and ready, so give me a call.

That’s it for now, get out there and make some memories and catch them up.

Tight Lines,
Capt. Dean Panos

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