Double Digits Early in the Season

Report Date: November 30, 2014

Sailfish season officially starts in November and ends around the end of April. In November you expect 2 to 4 shots a day, sometimes less and sometimes more. With a string of cold fronts already making there way past South Florida, we are seeing signs of an excellent sailfish season this year. Just this past weekend we already had our first day with double-digit releases hooking 15 sailfish and catching 12 in one day. To have these banner days you really need to have all the right conditions, which are blue water on the edge, north current with a wind out of the north or northeast and the passing of a cold front. That particular day we just had back to back cold fronts pass through and had a strong north wind but had blue-green water and south current. Even without great conditions we still had a strong sailfish bite, which is why I am extremely encouraged that this will be a great year. The last two to three years have not been bad, but they have been average at best. I would really like to see a banner year. A lot of my clients ask me what is my favorite fish to catch and kite fishing for sailfish is definitely one of my favorites. To me, watching a sailfish come up to a kite bait, stalk it, eat it and then put on a show is pure adrenalin.

Although I wish every day could be like that one, there are going to be days that the fishing is a bit slower. Luckily we have hooked at least one sailfish on every trip these past two weeks, and averaged 2 to 3 sailfish per day, but we did have one trip that we didn’t catch one. Besides the sailfish though, there have been plenty of mahis around and they have been eating the kite baits as well. The past few trips we have also caught some decent kingfish and also some cobias. There were quite a few cobias caught a month or so ago and all those were too small to keep. The past two that we caught were in the 20-pound range and I do know that cobias grow extremely fast; it would be interesting to know if those are from the same ones we were releasing last month.

I haven’t been back to Bimini to go wahoo fishing this month, but the wahoo are biting. Not to long ago a Bimini record wahoo was caught. The wahoo was caught one day before their tournament there and was 122 pounds. That is a beast of a fish and congrats to the crew that caught that one. Hopefully the next break in the weather I can put together a quick trip back over there.

Well we just finished up with Thanksgiving and I hope everyone had a great time with family and friends. Now we have the Christmas holidays on their way. If you have friends and family coming into town and want to show them some of South Florida’s best fishing, give me a call and lets set up that trip. I still have some dates open during the holidays. Also, if you have that special someone in your life and just can’t find the perfect gift for him or her, how about a gift certificate for a day of fishing on the Double D. Hopefully he or she will have one of those banner days and will be a gift they remember forever.

Tight Lines,
Capt. Dean Panos

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