 |
Miami - Haulover to Fowey Light
Capt. Dean Panos
April 30, 2001
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
Double D Charters
4/30/01
KINGFISH!
The big kings are here. This past week and into the weekend, there has been incredible kingfish action. From Key Biscayne up to Haulover, kingfish are readily feeding on the reef. The bigger kings seemed to have been North of Gov't Cut. We have been catching the kingfish from 140 - 75 ft of water.
Conditions, except for winds have been perfect. There has been purple blue water, and a good north current. The blue water has pushed in tight on the reef and the fishing along that edge has been great. Besides the kingfish, there have been plenty of sailfish to go around, and quite a few dolphin as well. We caught sailfish, kingfish, dolphin, bonitas on every trip we had. The sailfish have been on the smaller side and seem to have been having difficulty catching and eating the larger live baits (goggle eyes and tinker mackerel). Dolphin have varied in size with most fish between 5 and 10 pounds.
Although the fishing has been good, the wind has been blowing. Beginning with Thursday the wind picked up. Saturday was actually a perfect day with 3-5 ft seas, and perfect conditions for live baiting. Sunday the wind picked up another notch and seas kicked up to 8 ft. Although this may make it uncomfortable, with the kingfish, sailfish and dolphin biting, it made it well worthwhile. My 28' SeaVee does great fishing in that kind of weather. It handles big seas well and is an extremely safe platform to fish on. Putting out a large 15 ft parachute sea anchor allows the bow to take all the wave action, and leave the stern relatively comfortable to fish. Using two kites and a flatline was enough to keep us busy all day. It was well past 1:00 pm before I sat down to have something to eat and drink. Using the big bait - big fish theory seemed to work. We had 18 large tinker mackerel for the kites, and 100 pilchards for flatlines and chumming. 17 of the 18 tinkers produced kingfish, and I am talking BIG kingfish - from 20 - 40 pounds each. We kept our limit, missed a few, and released the rest. It is quite the site to watch a large king skyrocket 10 ft in the air with your kite bait in his mouth. All day long we watched the kings exploding on our baits. Kingfish usually make two scorching runs, the first one when they first bite and the second one when they see the boat. Don't thumb the spool during these two runs or you will break him off and also burn some flesh from your finger. After one of the anglers caught his second sailfish, and we depleted our live bait, we called it a day at 3:30, and both anglers were extremely happy that we ventured out in the rough stuff.
Tight Lines and Good Fishing,
Capt. Dean Panos
More Fishing Reports:
|
|
|
|
