Fishing Reports
Springtime Fun
Report Date: April 6, 2016
As promised, we are now getting into springtime fishing and it is already getting good. There are a ton of sailfish around as well as kingfish, a few mahis and the beginning of our blackfin tuna run. Starting with sailfish, there are more sailfish in our waters right now than there have been all winter long. We have had a few days catching 6 to 9 sailfish in one day and one great day where we broke double digits and caught 15 sailfish out of 17 bites. We are seeing a lot of freejumpers and also hooking more multiples, which means there are packs of fish moving through. It's always fun to catch one sailfish at a time but even more fun to catch 3 and 4 at a time. We had one day last week where it was just one angler and me and we caught 9 sailfish that day, including one tripleheader of sailfish that even though it was just the two of us, we still caught all three sails. The sailfishing should remain strong well into May with hopefully a few more double-digit days ahead.
The kingfish have been around as well and there have been a few days that the kingfishing was actually on fire. A lot of these fish were eating flatline baits but there is quite nothing like watching a kingfish skyrocket 15 feet in the air going after a kite bait. I was always puzzled by why these kings generate so much velocity and get so high in the air going after a bait, but it was explained to me that the bite force of a kingfish is actually very low and they need to generate speed to use the impact and there super sharp teeth to make the kill. I have not caught any of the huge smokers yet this year but did have some shots at 50 and 60 pounders that just missed the hook.
The blackfin tunas are also starting to show up. There have been a few days where we have had a well full of pilchards and were able to live chum with them, that we got the tuna schools busting behind the boat. There was one day where we chummed real heavy and at one point had 15 or so tunas in the air busting the baits all around the boat. Most of the tunas are still small but we did catch a 30 pounder last week. The past few days there have also been a handful of yellowfin tunas hooked.
There have been a few mahis around and the ones we are catching while kite fishing have been decent in size. The mahis numbers though should definitely increase, as we get further into spring.
As you can see, spring is here and with spring comes variety. Its my favorite time of the year to fish and I still have dates open in April and May so give me a call and lets set up that springtime fishing trip. Now is also the time to start planning on the summer trips to the Bahamas and the summer mahi trips. Don’t wait too long and lets go catch some fish.
Tight Lines,
Capt. Dean Panos