A Great Week of Action
Capt. Bouncer Smith
April 11, 2013
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
I gotta tell you, that keeping up with life has been tough lately. We have been fishing day and night for months. For that sorry excuse I apologize for not keeping you up to date on my fishing.
As a brief overview of our fishing, it has been pretty good. We are now catching a lot of fish. As an example, we caught 6 sailfish, a 15 pound tuna, 32 pound kingfish, 2 mahi, a small shark, a bonito and a barracuda yesterday.
The day before was 6 sailfish, 2 throw back big red groupers, a kingfish, a bonito, a bluefish and a big tarpon.
Tarpon fishing was better in December and January, but with plenty of tarpon around I expect big action soon.
We had the week of a lifetime a couple of weeks ago. On Wednesday we had 3 guys out on a very slow day. We had a 30 pound almaco jack and a bonito by 2 PM. We had tried about everything including shark fishing.
I stopped in one more spot where we might catch a shark or a grouper on a rock pile. We had just put the lines out when a fish ate the bottom rod baited with a big kingfish belly hoping for a shark or grouper.
The fight went on for 30 or 40 minutes when out of the deeps came a fish I had never seen alive before. We had caught a 11 foot big eyed thresher shark. A beautiful beast with big eyes, a huge tail and glowing colors. It jumped away from the boat a couple of times. I even got a jump on my phone camera. It tore off across the surface throwing spray a couple of times. We were thrilled.
We got a good release and headed home.
The next day we caught a sailfish, a mahi and a 30 pound kingfish. That night we caught 4 tarpon.
Friday was rough, but we tried swordfish for a couple hours and caught a 30 pound oil fish. That night we caught 2 tarpon.
Saturday we were hunting sharks. We caught a 300 pound hammerhead about 11 AM. After a slow hour or so, I decided to try where we caught the thresher on Wednesday.
We had just set up all the lines when a big fish crashed the rigged mackerel dead, but swimming under the kite. BLUE MARLIN!!! We are hooked up with all the right tackle. 50 pound ProSpec mono on a Penn 50 International, 300 pound wind-on leader and 12 wire at the end.
After numerous jumps, blistering runs across the surface and more jumps, an hour had passed and we had released this great 300 pound fish.
We caught 2 tarpon that evening.
Sunday 9 year old Jack and mom, Karen, fished a few hours. Jack caught his first sailfish, a huge 70 pound fish. They both caught good sized kingfish and 4 bonito.
We caught one tarpon that night.
Monday Gregor was back out. He had caught the tarpon Sunday evening. Now he was ready for more action. He had a very good day with a 40 pound amberjack and a nice scamp grouper on vertical jigs, a 34 pound jack crevalle on 20 pound fished under the kite, a couple of kingfish and a nice gray grouper.
We switched to sharks and more bottom fishing in the afternoon. We had just set up in 400 feet of water with a Spanish mackerel on a flat line with 80 pound Invisabraid.
After only a couple of minutes the mackerel rod screamed as a fish took off. 1 hour and 45 minutes latter a 150 inch big eyed thresher appeared along side the boat.
So in 6 days we caught our first and second big eyed thresher sharks and our first blue marlin off Miami in 15 years.
Miami Fishing Forecast:
SAILFISH, TUNA, BIG KINGS ALONG THE EDGE, TARPON IN THE INLET AND SWORDFISH OFFSHORE SHOULD THRILL ALL THROUGH MAY
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