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Fishing Report for Miami, Florida
Capt. Bouncer Smith
February 8, 2004
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
Variety is Fun
No two days have been the same lately on Bouncer‘s Dusky 33. Saturday we fished a fishing club event and caught a sailfish, a dolphin, a bonita and a kingfish. Sunday was a rain out. Monday night we fished with Herb Ratner and he caught two swordfish on our 5 hour trip. The first was 158 pounds, that’s 67 inches fork length, for those learning to estimate their swordfish weights. Within 20 minutes of the first fish, Herb caught and released a 40 pound swordfish. Both fish ate squid fished below 300 feet.
Tuesday morning we tried for tarpon, and they were everywhere. The bad news was they had lock jaw. It appeared that 6 boats hooked 1 fish in a couple hours. We changed targets and tried some deep drop bottom fishing. This produced some 3 to 4 pound yellow eye snappers, assorted groupers and tile fish.
Tuesday evening we were back out after those tarpon. They were gone. We searched long and hard for them, but they hard left the area. We found a couple smaller tarpon off the south jetty and jumped one. We caught a small snook there as well. We found a few tarpon in the ship channel when the tide started to fall. We jumped one and caught 2 gray snapper and two red grouper. It had been a tough day for catching.
Wednesday was good for us. We fished live pilchards and herring on kite and flat lines. The day produced 4 sailfish strikes with 3 caught and released. For the frying pan we caught 3 dolphin. Wednesday night we tried the swordfish again. We thought we had a slow night. We had two fish on, but both pulled the hook. The rest of the fleet reported no strikes.
Thursday it blew 30 with 5 to 10 foot seas. Friday it was down to 20 knot winds and we knew the fishing would be hot with a strong north current. We did catch a fair amount of dolphin, but only one sailfish. The action was spiced with a nice mutton snapper, a black grouper, a king fish and a bonita.
The night trip we found no tarpon. We caught a small cobia and a small shark.
Saturday we fished with Sonia and Pete Tenuta from Michigan. They were thrilled with catching the bait. My mate Josh and I knew this was going to be one of those special trips. We caught two big African pompano, a kingfish a bonita and most of a yellowtail anchored in our first spot. The next spot produced a nice black grouper. The rest of the day we caught a barracuda, but had a lot of laughs till the rain chased us home. Once again the tarpon let us down in the evening. We caught a bluefish, a blue runner and a ladyfish.
We will see a lot of you at the Dusky booth during the Miami International Boat Show on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Also don’t miss the Big Game Room upstairs where we will be speaking at noon on Saturday and Sunday.
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