Variety

Report Date: October 15, 2015

The great part about fishing in South Florida is that we have so many options, especially this time of year. We can go daytime swordfishing, mahi fishing in the Gulfstream, high speed trolling for wahoo in Bimini, deep dropping, kite fishing on the edge, etc. I was lucky enough to do pretty much all of that in the past two weeks. We did a trip to Bimini to target wahoo while high speed trolling. BTW – that is one of my most favorite types of fishing as there is nothing like the initial run of a wahoo while you are already going 15 knots. We had a decent crossing and after clearing customs in Bimini we set up and trolled south. Not far along on the troll we hooked and lost our first fish. Then another hit and miss and finally the third time was the charm and we landed a nice wahoo. Over the next few hours we ended up catching 6 out 9 wahoo and some mahis and cudas. What a great day. The next day we only trolled for a couple of hours and still went two for three on decent size wahoo. We had a calm and great crossing on the way back.

Once back in Miami we did a bit of kite fishing and drift fishing on the edge and did pretty well with mahis, kingfish, bonitos and a few sails. We did have one day that was pretty tough with only a few sharks and a few kings. The good news is that even with green water, light west wind, south or no current, there are still plenty of fish around. For one, there is an enormous amount of bait around such as mullet, and small bonitos and tunas on the edge and plenty of pilchards in the bay. With that amount of bait around, I can’t wait until we get some decent water and north current pushing on the edge. We have had very light west wind which pushes dirtier green inshore water out to the edge. Luckily next week we are going to start getting East and Northeast wind which will definitely push in that clean blue offshore water and then watch out!

We have also done a couple of swordfish trips and those have been productive as well as each trip resulted in a swordfish. Swordfish can be finicky but this is definitely the time of year to target these fish. There was one day last week while we were wahoo fishing in Bimini that the sword bite really turned on with several boats getting 4 and 5 shots at swords. Although those days don't happen everyday, this is the time of year that you are most likely going to have one of those banner days.

We also did an offshore trip for mahis this week. It was the day after we had that slow day on the edge, so even though it is late in the season for the mahis, the conditions on the edge did not look good so we went offshore into the Gulfstream to find some fish and boy did we ever. Our first find was a flock of birds working an area and with a livewell full of pilchards I started live chumming and it wasn't long until we had skipjacks tunas everywhere and after catching half a dozen of them we continued on our quest. We soon found some big patches of Sargasso weed and caught some mahis with the biggest one right at 40 pounds. Nearby was a piece of wood and after trolling by it we ended up catching 7 wahoo. What a great day of offshore fishing.

As I mentioned earlier, next week the wind is forecasted to switch to the east and that will push in good water and get our sailfish bite going strong. I also have a couple of more Bimini wahoo trips planned and more day swordfish trips as well.
The new boat is almost done and will be ready and showcased at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show at the indoor booth at SeaVee Boats. Go by and take a look at her and better yet after the show book a trip and lets go catch some fish on her. The fishing on the edge is about to explode as the swordfishing and wahoo fishing is already great so give me a call and lets set it up.

Tight Lines,
Capt. Dean Panos

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