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Fishing Report for Northern Miami-Dade County
Capt. Dave Kostyo
January 14, 2004
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
Saturday (1/10/04) with the wind from the W/NW @ 12-24 mph, the kingfish bite was on at the Cuban Hole off Government Cut. Pilchards and herring swimming in the 80'-120' range didn't last to long. Slow trolling the area with flatline baits and downrigger baits got us plenty of action. Single hook rig baits were constantly being hit and not hooking up. Adding a treble hook stinger did the trick. We kept 4 fish in the 8-12 pound range.
Monday (1/12/04) we once again started in the Cuban Hole area. The wind was NE/ENE @ 12-19 mph and kingfish was the targeted species. Joe Segal, his wife, and new born baby from Waialua, Hawaii were visiting their family in Miami. Joe's long time High School friends Eli Sanders from Waltham, Massachusetts and Andy Ballard from Brighton, Massachusetts were also visiting. So what do three friends do when on vacation? They go fishing. As like Saturday, the kings were cooperative with their strikes. However, they weren't with getting hooked up. Even the stinger rigs couldn't keep the hook in many fish. The range was 70'-110' and when we decided to go out deeper and put up the kite, we had a 12 pound king along with a schoolie size dolphin in the box. Six other strikes resulted in either no hook up or pulled hooks. Moving north of the sea buoy, our drift was started in 250'. The mono leaders on the kite paid the price in 140' when a large king sky
rocketed the long bait and cut it off and then proceeded to strip the bait from the short (circle hooks) kite bait. A quick rerigging and baiting had us back fishing. At 119' a sailfish swam around our bait and left. At 95', the bow flatline took off and we added a 15 pound king to the box. At 60', we were pulling in the kite baits to set up another drift. The short bait had just been removed when the long bait went crazy and we were hooked up to a not so happy sailfish. Some great rod handling by Joe and quick rod clearing by Eli and Andy and the fight was on. The sail fought the entire time on the surface and put on a great aerial show before coming to boat side to get its picture taken before being released.
Monday evening (1/12/04) it was time to search for tarpon in the Haulover Inlet area. Wind from the NE/ENE @ 10-18 mph gave us a great drift. Using live shrimp, we marked, hooked up, and caught a 40 pound tarpon on our first drift. Then like it sometimes does, the fish seemed to disappear. Working a large area paid off 2 hours later when Max Dekelbaum got his chance at his first tarpon of the season. Another great aerial show by Max's 40 pounder along with the boat side photos and the tarpon was released.
Tuesday evening (1/13/04) I decided to run to Government Cut to see if the tarpon were more abundant there. The light wind from the NE/ENE @ 0-7 mph had the seas almost flat and this allowed for the easy spotting of any rolling fish. On the way to Government, I spotted a rolling fish and we swung around and put out a bait. The hook up came shortly thereafter. The fish made a 50 yard run and jumped. Then another 50 yard run and jump. The second jump did the trick and the tarpon released itself. Another drift and we continued down to Government. The north side produced a mangrove snapper. The south side and main channel were void of fish. Back up toward Haulover and another drift in the general area where we found the first fish. This time the hook up was solid and a 40 pound tarpon on 12# line was released after a 10 minute fight. The next drift we hooked up again, however, this time it was a bonnethead shark. The next two drifts had ladyfish striping the baits from the hooks. Our last drift of the evening was in the Inlet itself and produced no strikes.
Captain Dave
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