Tough Weather Good Fishing
Capt. Bouncer Smith
June 27, 2012
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
We had some trying weather over the last few days, but fishing was pretty good. Winds were averaging around 25 knots, but sometimes well over 30 and then there was all the rain.
We fished with 3 teenage girls and their dad for three days. Camille, Elise and Marina were troopers. They fished through driving rains, 8 foot seas and periods of slow fishing. But they did have their good times.
They started with an afternoon and evening trip. Marina and Elise both caught sailfish. Poor Camille did everything right, but all three of her sailfish got away. She did catch a 30 pound tuna. We added a king to the mix and quit early. But then again we stopped at the inlet on the way in and caught 5 snook, all of slot size, but released as the season is closed.
Saturday was slow. We did catch 5 mahi, keeping 3. We caught a nice kingfish and a couple of bonito. Then came the treat of the day as Marina battled and beat a 40 pound wahoo on a Penn Conquer spinning reel with 20 pound line.
Sunday was really rough. We fished the edge for several hours and caught a small almaco jack and a hammerhead shark. We decided to switch to inlet fishing.
At the inlet we hit big time pay dirt. We found a school of extra hungry snook. Fishing live herring we caught 15.5 snook. A bull shark caused that missing half. These snook were 8 to 18 pounds and coming two at a time. It slowed way down when the bull shark showed up.
This inspired us to switch to tarpon a little further up the beach. Marina caught a 80 pound tarpon on a live crab. A few unproductive drifts and we went home thrilled with our 3 day of successes.
Monday we celebrated Jeff's upcoming wedding with a day of inlet fishing. It was blowing over 30 again and the hangovers were not conducive to rough offshore seas. We worked hard to catch another 80 pound tarpon and 4 nice snook. We did miss several other snook.
Late Monday I got a call from a guy looking for a tarpon in this terrible weather. I said we had a 80% shot with the forecast SW wind. Well, 80% turned into 3 tarpon releases over 100 pounds each, jumped off number 4 and added a nice Spanish mackerel.
If you like snook or mutton snappers, you need to fish in July.
Miami Fishing Forecast:
Look for good mutton snapper and gray snapper fishing through July.
Last year some of the best mahi fishing was in July and it is great for catch and release snook.
More Fishing Reports:
