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Fishing Report for Northern Miami-Dade County
Capt. Dave Kostyo
February 23, 2005
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
Between fishing and the Miami Boat Show, it has been a whirlwind of a week. Lets get right to the day by day activities.
Tuesday (2/15) evening, Haulover Inlet was the place and tarpon was the goal. Bill Skehan caught his first tarpon and Jim Lefevre added a few more toward his total of tarpon caught for the MET Fishing Tournament. Live shrimp was the bait and the total for the evening was 3 for 4.
Wednesday (2/16) evening the tarpon scene took a drastic down turn. It's as if someone threw a switch. We got not a single tarpon strike. The good news was that we did catch and release a very nice 15# jack crevalle in the mouth of the Inlet.
Thursday (2/17) morning we had W/NNW winds @ 3 - 7 knots. We had the kite up for part of the morning and it was a chore keeping the baits in a good position. Just as we were about to finally not have enough wind to keep the kite up, a sailfish paid us a visit. It pulled some line, made a jump, and threw the hook all with the line still in the kite clip. The remainder of the morning only produced 1 remora. Maybe tomorrow will bring us better wind conditions.
Thursday (2/17) evening we did the grand tour of the tarpon spots. Starting at Haulover, the tarpon took some revenge on me in the form of going 0 for 2. Next, the bottom critters picked on us and a lizardfish managed to get the circle hook and shrimp in its mouth and get caught. The next stop was in the Bay where Ben Jones got his first tarpon. Finally, we tried the south side of Government Cut where we saw no action. That made us 1 for 3 on tarpon this evening.
Friday (2/18) morning we started with NNW winds of 9 knots. The action started slow, however, when the wind switched to the NNE and blew as high as 16 knots, the sailfish came to life. First we saw some tailers go by out of range of our baits. Making a depth adjustment out to 140' quickly got us some action. First, we watched a sailfish swim up to a flatline bait and proceed to knock it off the hook and get a free meal. Next, Mike Rice worked over a nice sailfish with expert angling skills and it was released. Several drifts with no action and then a move back out to 140' had Ben Jones hooked to his first sailfish. This one put on the show of shows and used almost every trick it had to try and get away. Ben matched its every move and 30 minutes later we took a few pictures and sent the sail on its way wondering what just happened.
Friday (2/18) evening, we once again took the tour for tarpon. It must have been time for me to go through the quick release period with them as we went 0 for 1 at Haulover and 0 for 1 in the Bay. We saw tarpon feeding on shrimp at Government, however they just never found our baits.
Saturday (2/19) I was with Whitewater Boats at the Miami Boat Show for most of the day. That evening we did the tarpon tour again. Starting at Haulover with NE/E winds of 12 - 14 knots, we caught and released 1 tarpon on our first drift. After having gone 1 for 5 on the last two trips, it was a welcome relief to start out the evening 1 for 1. As it turned out, that was the highlight of the evening. All the boats that were fishing Haulover that evening caught 1 fish each. In the Bay, we never got a single bite and the same for Government.
Sunday (2/20) it was back to the Boat Show with Eagle Claw till 2 PM and Whitewater Boats till closing.
As you can see, there has been a slow down in the number of shots we have been getting on tarpon. It is not unusual for this to happen at some point in February. The only question is how long will it last. With the full moon period coming on this week, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they'll turn back on. I've got several trips scheduled this coming week, so I'll keep you posted.
Captain Dave
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