Spring is Getting Close

Report Date: March 18, 2009

Sorry for the delay between reports but luckily I have been busy fishing practically every day. The fishing overall has been good, it hasn’t been red hot, but you can already see signs of spring on the way. The sailfishing has been OK, our best day in the last two weeks we hooked 8 sails and managed to catch half of them. For the most part it has been 1 to 3 fish per day, but we did have 2 days that we didn’t catch any. The conditions were wrong with no wind and green water with very little current. The days that we have been getting shots, we usually have the right conditions.

As spring approaches, the kings start showing up and they are here. I haven’t seen any huge kingfish yet, but that should change in the next two months. Most of the kings have been between 5 and 12 pounds. Another fish that is making its way up here is the blackfin tuna. For a week or so a few boats caught some, but the tuna bite has remained quite the past few days. That is definitely going to pick up and my favorite time to fish for them is in the late afternoon. In April and May I actually start to offer trips that start at noon and end at 9:00pm as it seems that the best action is usually after 4:00pm for the tunas as well as the sails and the kings.

Big mahis should also start to show up on the edge. We caught a few decent size mahi yesterday on the edge, but a week ago we were offshore and caught half a dozen BIG mahis. The smallest one was 20 pounds and the largest was 35 pounds. Catching mahis that big on 20 pound spin tackle is a blast.

Another fish that has been quite cooperative has been the tarpon. The late afternoon/early evening trips have worked well. Our best night we caught 4 tarpon out of 5 bites. Almost all of the boats are seeing similar action as well.

The evening sword bite continues to be quite slow. The day time sword bite is better and usually results in at least one or two swordfish per trip. I haven’t done much of either as I have been fishing on the edge for sails, kings, tunas, etc.

Miami has also seen its share of exotics as well. Over the weekend a private boat named Wound Up caught a 130 pound yellowfin tuna on 20 pound spin tackle. That is an impressive catch on light tackle. There have also been a few white marlin caught while sailfishing and also one blue marlin caught on the kite with 20 pound tackle.

Spring is definitely the best time to fish in South Florida. April and May are starting to fill in but I still have open dates. Give me a call and let’s catch some fish!

Tight Lines,
Capt. Dean Panos

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