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Marathon, Florida Keys
Capt. Bob Brown
May 11, 2004
Marathon - Saltwater Fishing Report
Offshore - Breezy Dolphin
The offshore fishing in the middle Keys has been very good if you have the brawn to be out there during all this windy weather. The Dolphin bite has been excellent for the past couple weeks with all the smaller "schoolie" sized fish you want and some larger fish mixed in here and there. The east winds of 20+ knots have been blowing what seems like forever and the seas have been tough when you hit the gulfstream current. Luckily, some good numbers of Dolphin have been hanging around in the 100-200ft range which puts you about 6 miles from shore. That's not so far to travel in tough seas. Today the easterly current was in about 500ft of water and the waves jumped up to about 10-12ft in that area and beyond. Needless to say, not too many boats were out there in those conditions. When the winds have been down a bit, the larger fish seem to be out about 20 miles where the edge of the stream is. Plenty of schoolies have been in the 10-17 mile range offshore as well.
Tarpon Time
The Tarpon fishing has been excellent lately in the Marathon and Bahia Honda areas with the morning fishing being a bit better than the evenings lately. Live Mullet and Pinfish have been the best baits and a Blue Crab will do the trick as well to get you a Tarpon bite especially on an outgoing tide at Bahia Honda bridge. The action at the 7 mile bridge has been good and some Tarpon have been showing up all over town in basins and channels surrounding the middle Keys. Other hot spots are the Long Key bridge, Tom's Harbor bridges and Vaca Cut. This morning on the "Sundance" we release two Tarpon in the 70-100lb range and also lost several others including an exciting double header right at dawn.
Permit on the deep wrecks
The Permit fishing on deep wrecks on the Atlantic side of the middle Keys remains hot with some nice fish being caught and released. One noteable catch on the "Sundance" recently was a 55lb Permit caught by 15yr old Michael Brooks of Pontra Vedra Beach, FL. This fish could have qualified as a junior world record in the IGFA record books if we had killed the fish. The existing junior world record Permit is 46lb. We decided to release the fish since it is spawning season and Michael now has an unofficial world record Permit! If you would like to see a photo of Michael Brooks big Permit check out our web site photo gallery.
Good luck in all of your fishing adventures!
Capt. Bob Brown, Jr.
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