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Jupiter & Palm Beach Offshore Saltwater Fishing Report
Capt. Rob Mazzei
September 19, 2000
Jupiter - Saltwater Fishing Report
Fishing...Good, Lightning...Bad
Sorry about the delay in reporting. Lightning struck my house and wiped out my PC, and dealing with the service center was another nightmare all together.
It has been a pretty good summer. Sailfishing has been consistent, dolphin were abundant as well. The toughest thing to do all summer has catch bait on a consistent basis.
Yesterday morning we found spanish sardines, cigar minnows and blue runners in 20 feet north of Jupiter Inlet. Smaller sabikis (size 6) worked better than the larger, but when runners grab’em, they’re toast. We were also able to cast net some, but the 3/8" mess net sank too slow, and the ˝" would gill the sardines and the cigar minnows. Well, off to the fishing grounds we went.
Off shore conditions were good, but the weeds were scattered and debris was scarce. We did manage two small dolphin approximately 8 miles out off Juno Beach. We had several strikes on the wire line outfit, but never connected.
Pretty much the highlight of the week was on Saturday, even with a great amount of boat traffic, in 450-500 feet off Lost Tree we witnessed eight frigate birds swooping down on bait being balled by sailfish. I could not believe it, they were up for a long time too, because we were trolling over to commotion, so it took a while. To see that many frigates was astonishing, let alone to see sailfish balling bait on the surface Labor day weekend. Most of the boats around were trolling for dolphin. When I saw they were sailfish, we pitched live goggle eyes which we bought out of Palm Beach Inlet directly under the diving birds, but did not get a look. The baitfish the birds were grabbing were on the smallish side and I couldn’t get a good look before it was gobbled down. After ten minutes or so the birds were gone and so were our hopes. We did troll up some bonitos closer to shore..
The mullet are starting the school up. After a good tropical blow or early nor’easter they should begin there migration south along the beaches. The action, at times can be explosive. Keep your eye out for diving pelicans, they can be seen a long way and are a sure indicator of baitfish on the surface.
I got word from Rocky McCollom he caught a 45 lbs. dolphin fishing out of Stuart. Nice!!!
Good Luck!!! Don’t forget a good surge protector.
Capt. Rob
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