Jupiter & Palm Beach Offshore Saltwater Fishing Report

Capt. Rob Mazzei
February 6, 2004
Jupiter - Saltwater Fishing Report

Great Weather, Great Fishing!

As predicted the strong cold fronts encouraged schools of sailfish to pour through our area accounting for "the best bite in decades" as quoted in the Palm Beach Post. We were out there for it!

6 fish out of 8 bites was our best day and that was with one angler and his sleepy son. Needless to say I got a workout that day. The sails were "balling" Spanish sardines on the surface in around 100ft of water and every boat in view was catching fish. Congratulations to Carl Bish and his son for doing a great job during the madness of 3 hooked sails on all at once. That happened twice that day. Sheer madness!

The Silver Sailfish Derby set a single day record with over 300 fish caught by 60 boats in one day. Those monitoring the tournament channel on the VHF radio could here boats calling in at least 1 fish per minute. The top boat had over 40 releases in the 3 day tournament.

Although the bite hasn't been as hot as it was most boats are catching 2-3 sails a day.

There were several weeks when a massive school of sardines and cigar minnows had holding outside of Jupiter inlet making bait catching easy and most likely contributed to the outstanding fishing. They have thinned out a bit but if you look around and watch you sonar you should be able to find some.

Dolphin fishing picked up steam. We've caught several nice fish in the 20lbs. range and lost two heartbreakers over that appeared to be over 30lbs. There have not been showing in great numbers but each day there are more reports, so hopefully they'll show up soon. March of 2002 an excellent dolphin bite occurred with 40-50lbs. fish caught on a regular basis and they stayed around into May. Last year they never materialized and left many disappointed.

King Mackerel are around but scattered. 80 feet off Lost Tree has had many smoker kings show up, but the here one day gone the next.

Almost all of our fish caught have been in 80-200ft. and we have only had to venture deeper when the boat traffic is heavy on the drop.

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