What!!

Report Date: May 26, 2023

It has been an incredible kite fishing season on the Double D. We thought two big yellowfin tunas in Miami on light tackle was incredible, but since the last report we landed our third and biggest yellowfin tuna on 20-pound tackle. Three yellowfin tunas in one season in absolutely mind blowing. We had some good luck, good anglers and good tackle to make it happen. This last tuna was hooked perfectly in the corner of the mouth with a VMC circle hook. I credit the new Sufix Neon Fire monofilament for holding up each and every time. This fish weighed in at 129 pounds and we fought it for 1 hour and 45 minutes. We had the fish up and I had the dart in my hand and at the last moment the fish lunged toward the motors, and I missed with. I was devastated but I was determined to get her. 10 minutes later the fish rose and raced on the surface, and I threw the dart a good 20 feet and nailed the fish. It was a sic shot and what relief after missing her the first time. It was a stud of a yellowfin.

Since that yellowfin we have caught a slew of sailfish, a bunch of blackfin tunas here in Miami and some more yellowfin in the Bahamas. We also caught a 400-pound blue marlin in Bimini.
We made two back-to-back trips to Bimini this month. The first trip was dedicated to tuna fishing in the NW Channel. Here we are using 30- and 50-pound class gear targeting the tunas. We ended up catching a dozen tunas, mixed between big blackfins and yellowfins. Our second trip we went bottom fishing mostly for yellowtail snappers and trolling for pelagics. The yellowtail fishing was phenomenal with big flags chummed up to within a few feet of the boat. Our day of trolling ended up being phenomenal as well. Our target was blue marlin, and we went all out with dredges, squid chains, lures, ballyhoo etc. We missed a small blue marlin early in the day and then just before calling it quits, we had a big blue marlin up on the short ballyhoos. This fish was lit up and stayed in the spread for well over minute switching back and forth between the right short and left short. It finally ate the right short ballyhoo, and it was game on! We hooked the fish on 30-pound class conventional tackle with 80-pound leader and on stand-up tackle. After an hour or so we got this beautiful 400-pound blue marlin next to the boat and with leader in hand got her a healthy release. What a great fish especially for Bimini.

On this side in Miami, we have done extremely well on sailfish and big blackfin tunas. We have had two double digit release days on sailfish since the last report. Sailfishing has been extremely good this whole season. The blackfin tuna fishing has also been outstanding with the bigger 30 pound plus tunas showing up. Just yesterday we caught 5 out 8 blackfins and the biggest was over 30 pounds.

May is rapidly coming to a close. We have a few more weeks of sailfish and blackfin tuna fishing and then we are going to shift gears to Mahi fishing offshore, fishing in Bimini for snappers and tunas and daytime swordfish here in the Gulfstream. The fishing has been awesome so book your trips now and enjoy some great fishing!

Tight Lines
Capt. Dean Panos

Back to Main Fishing Report Page