Photo: Paul Castronovo
The last few days The dolphin fishing has gotten much better with plenty of big schoolies in the 5-8 lb range under floaters and the bigger patches of sargasum .
There is also some wahoo under most of the floaters and some small to medium sized blackfin tuna under birds eating small feathers on the troll .
Both the Mahi and tuna have been from 500ft on out, along the edge there is still an occasional kingfish, sailfish and Bonita on live baits and on the troll.
What a spectacular week it was offshore swordfishing this week. Pictured above is John Fichtelman senior and junior with a beautiful fish we caught aboard “Lisa B” earlier this week. The bite has been red hot as we have fished the last 10 days straight for swordfish capturing 15. What a run! Our charters have enjoyed catching swords weighing up to 325 pounds. The best of the bite was extraordinary deep around 1850 feet of water. Throw the logbooks out for this last few weeks as the fish were camped on large schools of squid outside of the standard depth pattern. A random drop in the deep on a slow day yielded a single sword that would prove to be the hot spot for the rest of the week. Sometimes you have to think outside the box and try new areas.
The mahi fishing was excellent offshore with many fish up to 20 pounds. Most of these fish were caught while trolling along thick weedlines. The best of the mahi fishing was in 1,000 feet of water 12 miles off the beach. Lots of boats were running and gunning which means that they would run from one patch to another and troll for short periods of time to see if the patch was holding fish.
Farther inshore we had a sailfish bite going on as the boats out of Hillsboro inlet had multiple flags hanging in the riggers this week. A few kings and tunas were mixed in to the nearshore catches.
The weather has been great so get out there!
-RJ Boyle