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Fishing Report for Northern Miami-Dade County
Capt. Dave Kostyo
June 18, 2006
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
Tarpon inshore and small dolphin offshore have been the most reliable catches. On the reef, there have been some kingfish, bonito, a few dolphin, and some barracuda.
On Monday (6/12) evening we had some excellent tarpon fishing. Despite the cloudy skies and wind from the SE/S @ 12 - 17 knots that Alberto sent our way we found some pleasant sea conditions at Government Cut using the north jetties to knock down the seas some. Live crabs did the trick and by the end of the evening, we had caught and released 3 out of 4 tarpon in the 55 - 90 pound class.
Friday (6/16) started out with a bang. I mean that literally. We were just outside Haulover Inlet headed to the first bait spot when it felt like I picked up something on a prop. When I checked, I saw that we had thrown a blade off the starboard prop. We fast idled back to Spinnaker Marina where Mike Thomas and John Tomlinson of TNT Marine fixed me up with a new set of 19" Mirage Stainless Steel props. At 9:45 AM we were headed back out. We caught herring outside of Haulover and at the worm hole. At Government Cut, we topped off the baitwell with pilchards and the Scharf Family and I headed offshore to look for dolphin. At 12.5 miles out, we broke the ice with a throwback size dolphin. At 14.5 miles we found more dolphin under a flock of birds that were working the shoreward side of a weed line. Chris and Tyler were having a grand time catching fish on herring chunks and Kaplan jigs. Mom (Pam) and Dad (Gary) also got in on the action and all four were constantly hooked up at once. The birds and fish moved on and we continued out to 20.5 miles before turning back after finding no more action. At 18.5 miles we found a flock of birds and the mother lode of dolphin. For the next 2 hours it was almost constant action with everyone hooked up. When it slowed a bit we only had to look up and see the birds about a 100 yards away and move over to them and we were back in the action. The wind started picking up from the NE and along with the wind so did the seas. The fish didn't mind and neither did the Scharf's. Late in the afternoon, the boys began to tire from catching so many fish and it was time to start heading back in. How many fish did we catch? Conservatively the count was 60 fish. Now before I gets loads of emails about going over the limit let me say that every fish was released because they were all under the 20 inch minimum legal length. The largest fish was caught by Pam and was 19 1/2 inches. Chris and Tyler didn't care, they were happy with just catching and seeing so many fish on their first dolphin trip. Gary and Pam didn't mind because they had fished with me previously and still had dolphin fillets in their freezer from that trip. They were happy with seeing their boys having so much fun catching fish. The boys learned two valuable lessons from this trip. First, you can still have fun fishing while obeying the rules. And second, you don't have to kill a lot of fish to say you had a great day of fishing. The ride back in was on the bumpy side, however, it was made much more pleasant with thoughts of the great day of fishing they all had just experienced.
Captain Dave Kostyo
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