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Miami, Florida - Offshore
Capt. Mark Houghtaling
August 14, 2000
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
I went fishing this past week with a less than enthusiastic attitude toward
Dolphin fishing. I had received reports from captains and local anglers that
the Dolphin fishing was hit or miss at best, and the fish were small to very
small. When you are in the charter fishing business and someone from out of
town has you booked, you make the best of the opportunities available to
you. We headed offshore of Triumph Reef and started our search for birds.
At 12 miles we found diving birds and plenty of small Dolphin. If fact, we
were in schools of thirty to forty fish, but we left them in search of bigger
fish. The fish we found were 2 to 3 pounds. Too small for cleaning.
Persistence and patience prevailed, and we did find a few larger size schools
of fish in the 5 to 10 pound range. As the afternoon dragged on, the fishing
actually got better, and we found many flocks of birds diving on schools of
Dolphin. Considering the heat and time of year , I would describe this weeks
Dolphin fishing as fair to good.
Wayne Conn, captain of the Reward II (305-372-9470), reported slower
Kingfishing than what they had last week. They are still catching a few fish
but the action has slowed. Captain Conn did report excellent Bonita action
along the reef outside of Key Biscayne. Not to be outdone, Wayne has been
taking his charters to deeper water and fishing for Yelloweye Snapper and
Snowy Grouper.
I took my clients to a “secret spot” off Key Largo this past week and fishing
was so good that we didn’t catch a fish! Every fish we hooked was either
eaten by a shark or some other bottom dweller. I’m sure we were hooking
Mutton Snapper, but as soon as you jerked them off the bottom some other
big fish inhaled them. We lost at least a dozen fish to these monsters....it was
very frustrating. We were using fifty pound tackle, using live Pinfish for bait,
and every bait that hit the bottom got inhaled. We would reel the fish
approximately fifty feet off the bottom and it would only take a few minutes
for “Jaws” to find them and pull them off the hook. We moved to other spots
off Key Largo and found bottom fishing very good. We had plenty of hits but
we never brought a fish to the boat. I guess that’s why they call it fishing and
not catching.
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