Miami Fishing Report for April

Capt. Gil Gutierrez
April 21, 2015
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report

The month of April seems like a blur to me. I have been non-stop for the past several weeks. Now that I have a couple of days off before starting up again on Thursday its time to get caught up on some of the action we have been experiencing the past couple of weeks.
The fishing in Miami seems to happening in flurries. One minute you will be doubled up on sailfish only to sit for the next hour without so much as a nervous bait. One of the factors that is affecting us is the continuous cat and mouse game the current keeps playing. One minute we have blue water and 3 knots of current and the next day we have green current less green water. On some days we have had to work very hard to put the day together and on some days we could do no wrong. Let's get to the species reports.
We continue to catch a couple of sailfish on almost every trip. The bite remains very similar to last month, a couple of fish here and there but no huge numbers. While kite fishing we have started to catch some black fin tuna with our biggest one weighing 25 pounds. This is a great sign that the black fins are starting to filter into the area. Again, not a vast number of them yet but they should only get better as we move forward into May and June.
Kingfish numbers are also down a little bit. But what I have seen is in increase in the size of the fish which is normal for this time of year. A lot of the snake kings, fish in the 7-12# range, have given way to fish in the 25# average and a while our biggest king was 40#'s right on the nose. The quality and quantity of these bigger kings should only get better. We had a couple of kings close to the 50# mark last year but none that broke it so we will see if we can achieve that this year.
The one fish that has surprised me by its absence have been the mahi-mahi. For some reason I have not caught any in on the reef, which is where you will catch them this time of year. And when I ventured out to 1100' in search of them I was only rewarded with a large fuel bill. I guess you can't catch them all! They should become more consistent the closer we get to summer.
The tarpon have started biting on a more consistent base. We did a trip on Sunday and were rewarded with a couple of nice fish. This is the time of year when the fish start to get very large and a tarpon in the 150# range is definitely not out of the question. The grouper and snapper bite continues to be good when we have some current in on the reef. We have caught some muttons with our biggest weighing 14#'s and some smaller ones filling out the cooler. The grouper bite has also been very good for us. Our biggest grouper since my last report was a 29# black grouper. All the weights you see listed are based on scaled weights and not estimations. The only fish I don't weigh are billfish and tarpon since I try not to handle them too much.
Well that is it for now and as always please remember to keep our service men and women and first responders in your prayers. Until next time Best of Luck…

Capt. Gil Gutierrez

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