The Reef is On Fire!

As kids get back to school, the Keys have seen a lack of tourists.  September though November can be a really cheep vacation for those of you that have been having money issues.  Everyone needs some vacation time and it doesn’t get any more relaxing than here in the Keys.  Most of us that live here take our vacations at this time and you will see that as some businesses close down for a month or so.  People ask me all the time, where do I go on vacation?  It is really kind of funny, I tell them, it’s not far, and my couch has always treated me right.  But, serious now, I visit some of my clients in Colorado, Michigan, Boston, etc.   My business is quite unique, I get to take people fishing which tends to be the highlight of their vacation.  Fishing with people creates a bond, which I can’t describe, but it can be strong.  I get to meet all walks of life and to see the diversity of my clients really makes me proud to be an American.

The lack of charters hasn’t kept me from fishing.  My friends have been coming down and catching yellowtail snapper, cubera snappers, mutton, and true reds.  I have been able to put my friends on some tuna, and grouper too.  This time of the year the water starts to cool off and some fish move out as others move in.  The snapper bite on the reef has been great.  We are getting close to a fall run of dolphin, which I can’t wait for.  They are usually decent fish, not too many schoolies, mostly fish from 10-20 pounds.

I have been fishing on the deep reefs from 75-90 feet of water.  I have been catching big mangroves from 4-5 pounds if the sharks don’t eat them.  The yellowtails have been ranging from 1-3 pounds.  I have been fishing some new areas and getting yellowtail everywhere.  I have been using a leader rig for the mangroves and flat lining for the yellowtails.  Since the current has let up I have been using no weight for the yellowtail. Every day is different, sometimes the fish will be close and sometimes far, but they are always there.  I have had to use large amounts of chum, but the payout is worth it.  Since the skippies have been thick, I have been using them a lot on the bottom and flat lining.  Tuna is exceptional bait, and I always keep plenty in the freezer.

There have been some talks about some sailfish being caught, but I haven’t fished for them because my clients and friends would rather catch something they can eat.  I believe that right now the reef has been the best area to fish as well as the hump for the tunas.  As the weather changes up north the swordfish will be pouring trough too.  Talk about a lot of good eating meat, swordfish happens to be one of my favorites.

Well one of my buddies Andy wanted to go sword fishing and needed some help, so I came along to catch one of these stupendous creators. We made two drops before his reel crapped out. We couldn’t get it fixed so we went to plan B.

Plan B was to use the electric reel and drop on some spots for some snowys and if we get lucky a queen snapper. I have been getting a queeny every once in a while. On the first drop we manged to get hooked up with something big. We were fishing in 800 feet of water and this fish didn’t want to budge a foot.

Queen Snapper courtesy Capt. Dave Schugar

It actually started to take line, so we figured it was a shark and cranked up the drag. Still this fish wouldn’t budge on our Tanacom 1000. After taking in a little line we finally got it off the bottom. We got it up almost 30 feet when he decided he wanted to go back to the bottom again. After ten minutes of battling, we have gained no line. After about 20 minutes we finally started to get this fish off the bottom. We worked hard and finally we we saw what was on our line. It was a monstrous snowy, with battle scars where it had been injured and healed. This was his last battle and we won. I would estimate this fish is around 50-60 pounds, it would have been a new world record, but we caught it on an electric and we all know that wouldn’t count.

On our next drop we caught a small 8-10 pound queen. One of my favorites, because not everyone knows how to catch them. Certain times of the year are better than others, but humps in deep water will hold large quantities of them from Sept-Jan. You just never know when they will show up. It was starting to get late and we wanted to catch a few tunas before heading home.

At the hump we trolled all over the place and it seems that the tuna were having lock jaw, even in the late hours that we were fishing. The bite all week has been phenomenal, but they have to take a break sometimes and today it seems to be the day. We did get a few, but not as many as we had hoped and the size was a little small compared to what we caught all week. The jigging slowed down all week and still it was slow. We trolled to get the few we caught. We actually chased birds as far as two miles away from the hump to get the tunas we caught. We also caught one on the back side of the rip. While trolling around the hump we caught two gaffers, well one gaffer and a heavy lifter. and that seems to be all we did.

MARATHON, Florida Keys — Hey everyone, I have a great report for ya! We decided to run across the pond to look for yellowfin tuna and dolphin since the fishing on this side has dried up a bit. We left the dock about 3:00AM to get some pilchards out on the reef. They weren’t super thick like last week, but after two hours we filled the well and headed south.

As the sun broke the horizon we all started to get a little giddy with anticipation. We stopped on four sets of birds until we finally found some dolphin that wanted to eat. They weren’t big but decent heavy lifters and schoolies.

After they shut down we were picking up our last fish when a slammer swam right behind the transom.  The crew sat there staring in shock and amazement as I pitched a live pilchard out to hook it up for my client Tom. Then Zack (who runs a boat at the boat house) pitched a bait out there and all of a sudden we got two big ones on. As we were fighting the fish, they ran together and then I saw a third fish where we pitched another rod out so now we had a triple-header! The fish weren’t huge but big enough to call large gaffers and one slammer. We boated all three fish and off we went further south on the hunt for the yellowfin. All this happened in 3200 feet about 42 miles out.

Yellowfins are a year-round fish in the Caribbean, but some months the larger migratory fish will push through. We caught eight 30-pound Yellowfins in Harbor Island last month and we figured if we got out far enough we might catch a few. We ended up not seeing any yellowfins, but the small blackfins were everywhere. Staying far enough away from land so not to enter Bahamian waters, we ran the radar picking up flock of birds, but each time it was 3-6 pound blackfins.

We did a little bottom dropping in some deep water and landed a few black snappers and yellow eyes, but there was very little current so I went to my Misty spot and on the first drop we landed a 30 pounder. Since you are only allowed one per boat we headed north checking the radar and finding small blackfins and skippy’s all the way back home. We did find some more dolphin but we had all the dolphin that we needed…so unless they were big we weren’t going to mess with them. I was thinking if we stayed in that area where we caught the dolphin this morning we might have landed a whole bunch of big ones. It was very alive from 40-50 miles out, lots of birds and fish.

Since it was close to a three hour run back to dock we put the blinders on and turned off the radar so not be sidetracked and headed home for an amazing dinner.

MARATHON, FL —This past week we fished 40 miles west of Key West for yellowtail and grouper.  The bite was on for the yellowtails.  We placed a block of chum in the bag and it wasn’t five minutes when we were pulling in our first flag yellowtail.  We had blue runners about five pounds swimming around the boat busting on fry which was an incredible site to watch.  During the summer the snappers are spawning and fry are all over the place and this brings in other fish that feed upon them.  For about three hours we caught jumbo yellowtail and then we finally got a bite one the bottom rod.  The bait was violently hit which then turned into a battle for my client Tom.  He fought this fish for nearly 45 minutes and then we caught a glimpse of what it was.  We thought it was a shark, but we were close, it was 15-foot sawfish, one of the rarest fish in the ocean.  This impressive fish is practically a dinosaur. The saw like bill has one-inch teeth sticking out of it was almost six feet long.  The massive body measured four and half feet wide and it was as long as the transom of the boat with is 15 feet.  Very cool sighting, most people will never see one in the wild, and this is the second one we have caught in two years.

After sweating out gallon of water we decided to move and try some deep water for muttons and scamp grouper but we never hooked up.  We got a few bites but never connected to any of them.  There is a ledge out in 250 feet of water out there, and we marked fish all over it, but with no current the fish were not being cooperative.  After about two hours of no bites be decided to anchor back up on a yellowtail spot and stay there the night.  It was getting late and we caught a few more yellowtails and one large red grouper.  As the sun started to go down we started to cook dinner, which consisted of grouper on the grille, grilled asparagus, garlic pasta and some rum, you got to have the rum.

The following day after breakfast we headed to the shallow banks on the inside edge of the Gulf and fished for red grouper.  It was like clockwork, dropping down dead gogs, and live grunts we were limited out in a couple of hours.  At this time we decided to head back to Key west for a fun filled Fourth of July.  Watching the fireworks from the boat while we eat bubba burgers, yellowtail ceviche and garlic pasta with a mozzarella, tomato salad.  After the fire works the boat next to us had a cannon, which they fired off and it was deafening.

After the fourth we headed to Cay Sal Banks, not getting too close because that would be illegal.  You have to check in before you can enter Bahamian waters.  There are areas where you can troll and deep drop where you are not actually in Bahamian waters.  You have to stay 12 miles outside any land.  Unfortunatly, there aren’t any places to check in over here, you would have to go 150 miles to check in but the Cay Sal Bank is only 50-75 miles away in the opposite direction.  While we were over there we caught about fifty barracudas on the troll so we tried deep dropping in 1200 feet of water and caught 10 black snappers and one forty pound misty grouper.  After that we headed home which is over three hours from there.

With one day off I had a guide trip with a great bunch of people, Mike, Jack, Max, Wyatt, and Spencer.  We had a goal to yellowtail fish, but with no current it was hard fishing.  After about three hours and two spots we decided to go mutton fishing.  It was a good thing that we did, because we caught five muttons and lost at least five others.  They guys had a great day and some excellent fish for dinner that night.  We fished a wreck in 180 feet of water and it was on, we got bites every drop with many double hookups.  The bite was on and if you are looking to catch some of these big mutton snappers this is the time to get down here.  Come on down, the weather is hot as the bite.  And to all of you, who are worried about the oil, don’t be there is no oil and there isn’t any likelihood of oil in out near future.  Listening to the news I found out that they might be able to cap it this weekend, keep your fingers crossed.  If the oil does make it to the Gulf Stream it will most likely pass by the Keys outs as far as twenty miles, so if it does come this way the reef shouldn’t be harmed.  Of course we never know what the weather will do so we still got to keep our fingers crossed that they will be able to contain this spill before a hurricane around the corner scatters it all around.  Stay informed about what’s going on down here, keep my web site on your favorites.  Hope to see you down here, come on down while the fishing is good.