Miami and Key Biscayne – offshore

Capt. Quinton Dieterle
September 24, 2001
Key Biscayne - Saltwater Fishing Report

Fall Bait Migration Has Arrived

Fall must be here! Thursday morning as I was fueling the Cutting Edge I heard several large busts in the marina, I looked around and under the boat and could not believe what I was seeing, a large school of Finger Mullet being chased by a couple of big jacks. It intently felt like fall.

Large schools of Mullet have been pushing through the bridges and jetties from Miami Beach to South of Key Biscayne this past week, and the smaller baits like finger mullet are finding some shelter in the calm of the marina. Today I saw three schools of Mullet inside of key Biscayne lighthouse on the way out. The schools were quit large and moving south.

The mullet are mixed with some Blacks and lots of small Silvers. The Sardines have also been moving through Hawks channel area and around the buoys and channel markers. The sardines are small inside and large offshore around the Monument can.

I have seen large schools of Jacks feeding on the sardines and mullet inside the Key Biscayne lighthouse and in the Jack Hole; I also saw a large school of jacks on the reef between Fowey and Triumph reef busting mullet. From here on out the excitement can only get more intense.

I also heard this week from a couple of divers that they are seeing a lot of Mackerel in the area of government cut. This time each year the Mackerel move south with the sardines and can be caught trolling small spoons and jigs around the range markers and in the jetties. As the fall action reaches a peak the Mackerel will hopefully move into the bay. It would be nice to experience a couple of months of action like I got to experience as a Kid. It seems to me that the lack of net pressure to the North the past few years are allowing the Mackerel time to restock. It is nice to see.

Fishing this past week was good. Lots of Dolphin early in the week and up to Friday, the weekend slowed down with almost no dolphin caught. The fish being caught were small with an exception being on Thursday when we caught 30 fish in the 5 to 10 pound range. Those big fish were mixed in with the small fish in grass patches in 800 ft. With the abundance of bait offshore the wrecks should start to come alive with grouper and amberjack. We had a few of each the last couple of days.

Tight Lines and God Bless America

Captain Q

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