Islamorada is beginning to show change as migration patterns have begun. The weather is still perfect and the little cold front this week didn’t hurt us much. Let’s start in the Back country with the waters warming up and Captain Clyde, Captain Jeff and Captain Gary all had great success this week. They all reported plenty of Red fish and Trout and the Cobia have started to show up more and more on the slack tides. These are nice fish ranging up to 50 pounds; all were caught on light tackle which is an absolute blast. The Cobia have been reacting to jigs really well. The Mangrove snappers have also begun to move around out back and the guys have been catching and seeing some more on the smaller wrecks. The amount of Cero and Spanish Mackerels the guys are catching are crazy with non-stop action!! Captain Clyde had some Alligators visit him and his party one day, as well as some White Pelicans. These are all signs of change. Before we know it the Tarpon and Bonefish will be swarming.
On the Ocean side things are becoming more and more active; we are noticing a mixture in size in the Schools of Yellowtail. We enjoyed some great Snapper fishing on both the “Pretty Work” and “That’s Right” with the fish ranging between 3 to 5 pounds which are a really nice quality fish. They were pushing the one to two pound fish out of the way which was pretty neat to watch. We averaged about 20 to 30 of these nicer fish almost every day. The Groupers of coarse won’t leave us alone some days. We had one day where we caught around 7 real nice ones that were all released alive and well. These were shallow water fish – 50 feet. The Kings are spotty but still provide some good non-stop action for an hour or so. Bait has been plentiful as we were still able to catch Minnows most mornings and the Ballyhoo have been pretty steady. The Cobias have made a showing once or twice this week but not as good as it was. We are waiting on another wave of them to pour down the line to us. Offshore there are still some Black fin tuna being caught and a few days ago there was some weed lines popping up in 200 feet and the Dolphins showed up which was also nice to see. There were no real big fish but Captain Andrew did manage to catch several over the weekend ranging up to 12 pounds. Again this is another sign of change.
On a final note I would like to thank George Poveromo for having me as a part of his seminar up in Boston this past weekend. Things went great and if you haven’t been to one of his seminars it’s a must, so put it on your bucket list to do next winter. I’m pretty sure he will be in Atlantic City, NJ and Annapolis, MD for 2012.
Captain John Oughton
