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Fishing Report for Miami, Florida
Capt. Bouncer Smith
April 20, 2005
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
Hot Action in Miami
The action has stayed hot in April. We tarpon fished with live shrimp the other night and caught 3 out of 3 strikes on live shrimp. These fish were 100, 120 and 75 pounds and were released as always. The next night we had the same anglers, but they wanted to try sailfish. We fished from 4 to 8 PM. with live herring and caught 2 out of 3 sailfish plus a couple dolphin fish.
Friday we fished with light tackle experts, Don and Sandy Blake from Homestead, Florida. We started with Don catching a 5 pound Spanish mackerel on 8 pound test with a bucktail jig. Sandy made the next catch. She caught a beautiful 35 pound amberjack on 20 pound tackle. That opened the floodgates of fish. We soon had 3 more amberjacks on 20 pound tackle. Don added 3 on 15 pound plug tackle and a Tsunami rubber minnow. Then Don caught a 16 pound gray grouper on his minnow. Sandy added 2 amberjacks on 10 pound spin with a jig and worm combo. Worn out from jigging in deep water, we went hunting some surface action. Sandy soon caught a 12 pound dolphin under a frigate bird. While trying to entice a following 15 pound dolphin to eat a rubber minnow, a sailfish ate a herring behind the boat and Don made short work of it. 20 minutes latter Don scored again with a 15 pound bull dolphin released from under another frigate. When the birds retired we set up the kite in 130 to 170 feet of water off Government Cut and produced a king, another sailfish and a couple more dolphin, all caught and released, before calling it a day.
Saturday was a little tough. It was blowing 25 to 30 so we were forced to do our fishing in the bay. Mathew Azipuru had flown down from Minnesota to celebrate his 14th birthday by catching a tarpon and anything else that would bite. We fished the bay for several hours. We had a lot of chances at several tarpon over 100 pounds each, but they were driving us nuts. We had a couple that took the bait and burst into the air to throw the hook. We had a couple that bent the rod over, ran drag rose to the surface and spit the bait out. Then we hooked one. He raced across Biscayne Bay jumping and running as he covered 150 yards. He was in the air half the time. BANG! The line had broken. It was fairly new, but for some reason it had failed. The next 45 minutes brought no more bites, so it was time to try the beach south of Government Cut. Fishing with live shrimp we caught a couple nice jack crevalles. Then we had a 50 pound tarpon on for several jumps before he threw the hook. Finally just after dark we hook a tarpon over 100 pounds. It ran, it jumped and it fought, but it was no match for Mathew. He finally caught his tarpon and went home smiling.
Monday and Tuesday we fished with Brooke and Joe from Connecticut. Monday we started late so we could finish with evening tarpon. It worked out well as we caught a 25 pound blackfin tuna, several dolphin, a 15 pound kingfish, a sailfish and 2 90 pound class tarpon. Brooke scored a “Gold Coast Grand Slam”. Tuesday was perfect fishing conditions for this time of year. We had a east wind about 15 to 20 and a light north current. The water was blue right up to the reef. We had solid action for 5 hours as we caught and released over 25 dolphin from 7 to 14 pounds in water from 120 to 200 feet deep. We spiced our catch with a kingfish, a barracuda and a bonito. The only thing that shocked us was our lack of sailfish. It turn out that they started feeding about 30 minutes after we headed for the inlet. Well we sure had a colorful fun day anyway.
The kind of action we had this week will be common all the way through May. We have a few days left in April and May, so e-mail us at [email protected] to plan your trip.
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