Fishing Reports
Spring Is Here
Report Date: April 8, 2018
Spring fishing is here and we are starting to see more variety and more fish! The sailfish bite has been good and as predicted we are getting multiple shots per day. Our best day this past week we caught 7 out of 7 sailfish in one day plus a bunch of other fish as well. Being that it is spring break, we have had a lot of young anglers on board and our youngest angler, Betty who is only 6 years old, was able to catch a sailfish with the help of her dad. It was awesome to watch little Betty reel in this big fish and watch her enthusiasm every time the fish jumped and ran.
Besides sailfish we are also catching quite a few kingfish and some big ones as well. Our biggest kingfish last week was 35 pounds but there have been some 50 and even 60 pound kingfish caught in Miami in the past two weeks. A big smoker king is a lot of fun on a reel especially if you hook them on a spinning reel.
The fish that is synonymous with spring in South Florida is the blackfin tuna and finally we are seeing some of those. The real big 35-pound plus blackfins are not here yet but we have caught a few in the 20 -25 pound range. This is a good sign as the big ones are usually not far behind. What we haven’t seen this year have been the yellowfin tunas we were catching last year. Typically we catch one or two big yellowfins per year, but last year we caught 6 yellowfins. That being said, this past Friday a boat fishing out of Ocean Reef caught a beautiful 150-pound yellowfin. That is quite the catch especially on 20-pound sailfish gear. I look forward to catching one of them soon.
There have been a few cobia around and we caught a decent 25 pounder off of a big leatherback turtle the other day. Some of the other boats have also been catching cobias as well. The fish we haven’t really seen a lot of lately has been mahis. Typically this time of year while kite fishing we catch quite a few mahis, especially the bigger 20 to 40 pounders. Hopefully they will show up soon. What there is no shortage of is bonitos. They have been quite fierce at times and always a lot of fun to catch.
As you can see there is quite a bit of variety around and that should get even better in mid to late April and May. We have a trip scheduled next week to fish for the yellowfin tuna in NW Channel in he Bahamas and hope we have good weather for that. We are also getting all our marlin gear ready for our big trip to San Salvador Bahamas this June. I still have 2 or 3 open dates if anyone is ready to catch blue marlin! It is a blast on a center console and the fishing is usually phenomenal that time of year.
Tight Lines,
Capt. Dean Panos