Hot Summer Fishing
Capt. Bouncer Smith
July 1, 2010
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
We ran over to Bimini on June 21st to fish with The Harkavys and Panters. On the way over we caught several dolphin on fly. There were hundreds of dolphin there, but Abie and I were not interested in catching that many with no guest aboard.
Tuesday morning we caught pilchards and headed east against a 20 knot wind. It was a rough ride out to a wreck up on the bank. After all the effort to get there fishing was a little slow. Heather and Ashton caught a few barracuda and big blue runners, but quality fish were noticeable by their absence.
After spending some time in that first place trying to score with grouper, snapper, cobia or mackerel we pulled anchor and headed for another spot.
We ran 14 miles to the north and set up on another little wreck surrounded with grass. I threw a few pilchards in the water and explosions went off wherever a pilchard hit the water. Big horse eye jacks and barracudas were on the rampage.
Heather grabbed a 10 weight fly rod with a 16 pound tippet and was immediately hooked up with a big jack. She had soon landed a new worlds record horse eye jack on fly at 13.5 pounds. Next Ashton caught a new world record horse eye jack for small fry women at 14.5 pounds.
By the end of the afternoon Heather had caught 5 world record horse eye jacks and Ashton had one as well. Brent Panter had also caught a 16 pound horse eye on 6 pound line and we lost track of how many fish we lost. It was non-stop action for 5 hours. We had to laugh when we realized we had no fish for dinner. At least the cracked conch was good at "Bob's" that night.
The next day we caught all the yellowtail snappers we could want as well as a cero mackerel and a few barracudas.
Back in Miami on Friday, I got a call from Captain Matty Tambor. He was in town on business and he needed a fishing fix. We agreed to meet at my boat at 4 PM. Matty showed up with some plastic rod and reel called a "Fish Stix". It was some inexpensive push button reel on a plastic rod that Matty thought it would be challenging to try to catch a snook on.
Well we caught some pilchards and pinfish around Government Cut and went to the jetties.
By the time we went home at dark, Matty had bites from 25 fish on his toy fishing outfit. He had caught 8 snook and a big jack crevalle. He had also conned me into catching a snook on his toy fishing outfit. We had a lot of laughs that afternoon.
Saturday Joel fished with us from 1 to 9 PM. He had requested dolphin fish and tarpon, but it was pretty rough for trolling offshore for dolphin so we fished the edge. Joel jumped off a dolphin and caught a sailfish and a king mackerel. We then ran back to the inlet late in the day where Joel added 7 snook to 18 pounds and a 70 pound tarpon.
Sunday was rough as well and we only fished a couple hours in the morning with the Rodriguez family. They did catch a bunch of bonito and half a mutton snapper.
That evening we fished with Bence and caught a bonito, a nice sized almaco jack, half a mutton snapper and 3 snook.
On Monday we fished with Jim Marten from Indianapolis and his son Jim who is offensive tackle for the Chicago Bears. They just wanted to sample what we could catch for the day. As we headed offshore from catching herring at the range marker we found dirty water all the way out to 750 feet. With this we were committed to going offshore for dolphin or whatever might eat a lure along the way. In 2000 feet of water we caught 3 nice size school dolphin. Nobody was having much luck, so we decided to try for a swordfish.
We made one drop with the only breakaway swordfish weight we had on board and a strip of bonito for bait. 30 minutes latter we had a strike and another hour latter we had a nice 60 inch swordfish on the deck.
We caught one very small dolphin on the way back toward the inlet.
When we got to the inlet we spent about 90 minutes and the Jims caught 2 snook, a tarpon, a jack and a barracuda. It was a fun day of variety fishing.
Monday night we took Eric's family fishing and caught 10 snook, a jack, a couple barracudas, a red grouper and a gray snapper.
As you can see, the fishing is hot. We have quite a few trips available over the next 10 days, so e-mail [email protected] and we can set up a trip.
We are doing a talk on tarpon fishing at the Rosenstiel School on Virginia Key on July 14th. I am also doing a seminar on bottom fishing at Dusky Sport Center on July 15th at 6 PM. Call 954-922-8890 for details.
Miami Fishing Forecast:
Snook at thick at all the inlets remember to treat them with care as they are here to spawn and they are the future of the sport.
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