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Fishing Report for Northern Miami-Dade County
Capt. Dave Kostyo
May 3, 2003
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
Wednesday's rainy and windy weather had us postponing the evening tarpon charter until Thursday night. When we arrived at Government Cut on Thursday (5/1), we were greeted by lots of rolling tarpon. As is often the case, however, they had lockjaw. When the dusk period arrived, they continued to play hard to get. Finally, the magic time arrived and we landed our first tarpon at 9:00 pm. Then it was a hit on every drift after that. The 10 crabs I had didn't seem to last very long. Many of the strikes were very subtle with just a little vibration of the rod tip and then there was no bait. With all the crabs gone, I switched to shrimp and the tarpon continued to feed on each drift. The final count for the evening was 4 for 7 in the 70-90 pound range.
Friday (5/2) was an afternoon/evening combo trip. Our goal for the afternoon portion was a sailfish and the evening was to get two anglers their first tarpon. While catching bait at Haulover, we got soaked by a heavy rain. Despite this, bait was accomplished in about 25 minutes. Once we got offshore, the thunderstorms fired into high gear. The lightning was hitting to close for us and we ran back inside the inlet to wait the storms out. Slow trolling the area did not produce any strikes. It was time to go back out and find some action. The wind around the storms had the seas kicked up and one of the four anglers soon was feeling the effects of motion sickness. He hung in and soon had his reward when we caught a sailfish in 188' off 71st Street. The sail put on a terrific display of jumps and cartwheels. It was time to seek calmer water and try for tarpon. Using crabs for bait, we got our first tarpon on our third drift. This one hit during the daytime, so everyone had no problem with watching its great jumps and powerful runs. Once released, the second one took a while to find. Once again it was after 9:00 pm. We heard and saw fish blasting baits on the surface about 100 yards south of where were drifting. A quick move and we got our reward. Ninety pounds of angry tarpon gave us a spectacular show before settling down and fighting deep and hard. A very tired and sore angler was both happy and relieved when I released the fish. With both goals accomplished, we called it a day and enjoyed the lights of Miami Beach and the ride back to Spinnaker Marina.
Captain Dave
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