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Fishing Report for Miami, Florida
Capt. Bouncer Smith
July 14, 2003
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
Jigs or Bait Variety is Fun
Inshore and offshore, fishing was good the last few days. We had a group from Atlanta the last couple days, one of which loves to fish artificial lures. We armed him with a 1 ounce “pilchard” jig on 12 pound spinning gear and away he went. He caught a couple small dolphin, lost a jig on a cut off and caught a 7 pound mutton snapper while we were live bait fishing along the edge. In the same time we caught a bonito and lost a sailfish on the live bait.
We moved in to the inlet latter and the jig produced a 20 pound jack crevalle. Here the live bait worked better, producing 5 snook, 3 barracuda and a 40 pound tarpon.
The next day we headed offshore to hunt for dolphin. It was less than ideal conditions, with spray blowing over the boat and many boats hunting the dolphin. Action was slow for most of the boats. We had worked our way out to 20 miles without finding fish. Then running back toward shore we found a rip containing 3 schools of fish in an hour or so. The first school produced only a couple fish willing to eat the live bait and none on the jig. The second school was small fish, of which a couple ate the jig, but none on the live bait. The third school produced some very hungry larger fish and we got several on the jig, including one of about 9 pounds.
On the way back in we dropped on a wreck and got a 30 pound amberjack on our only live blue runner. We had fresh fried dolphin for lunch and then went tarpon fishing. In 2 hours we had only 1 bite, but it produced the catch and release of a 80 pound beauty of a tarpon. Still looking for more tarpon action, we went back to the inlet and caught 2 snook and 2 tarpon as the full moon rose from the sea.
Morning breezes sent us back in the bay for more tarpon. We fished live pilchards for a couple hours and caught and released tarpon of 70 and 50 pounds. It was a fun weekend producing some great variety.
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