Spring is in the air and life is good!! We have been pretty busy down here and even better is that the fishing is real good. The weather has been nothing short of perfect and the oil is not going to be here any time soon. And PLEASE don’t just ignore this problem, it is far more serious than most know or understand. The repercussion of this is devastating beyond belief! Most of you know me and I’m a pretty quiet guy, but I personally have had enough and truly wish I could make a difference, however, that’s not possible. I have watched disaster after disaster happen in this country and at the same time been treated like a puppet on a string, lied to and never ever really been told how bad these events are until it’s too late…ENOUGH!!! What can we do!? Remember Katrina, a year later reality set in and our Government does NOTHING except apologize and tells us how much better they will react next time. It’s a JOKE as it’s already too late! So I ask you to do what you can do to help instead of sitting back and wishing we could make a difference before it’s too late. Sorry but this whole thing is very upsetting. To think that our way of life will change dramatically is a hard pill to swallow. And it will.
On a positive note fishing has been outstanding; the Dolphins have been showing up in nice bunches. Both the Pretty Work and That’s Right have been going steady. We’ve spent most of our time offshore with plenty of Schoolies and heavy lifters. The gaffers have also been slowly showing in pairs or singles with an occasional 5 or 7 bagger coming by. There have been very few slammers as last week I heard of three 61, 58 and another 61lb. Most of the times the birds have been on the fish, but you still get the blind bite every now and then. Trolling a few ballyhoo and some small plastics for the little guys seems to work best for me. Once the fish are close we like to do a lot of sight casting which is much more productive. There have still been a few days when we were able to get the Blackfins to bite. The reef has also been quite productive too. The Yellowtails have been strong as well as the king Mack’s. There are permit on the Eagle wreck as well as the shrimp boat and they have really enjoyed the live Crabs. Bait has been pretty good most mornings, plenty of Pilchards as well as the Cigar minnows and Sardines.
Most recently That’s Right did another Dry Tortugas trip and we had great success. We spent most of our time anchored down in 75 to 100 feet of water, looking to take advantage of some real good bottom fishing. We had a wide assortment of bait…Speedos, cigar minnows, ballyhoos and so on. We were going to be ready for everything and anything!! The mornings seemed to be very productive for us with the evenings just so so. The Black groupers made a very nice showing; we had several 30 plus pounds and plenty of 10 to 15 pounds. The Red groupers were ok I think as we had a dozen or so of them, mostly 8 to 12 lbs. Live Yellowtails were the ticket for these guys. We also found a little bit of a Mutton bite; real nice fish ranging 10 to 17 pounds and some smaller schoolie size mixed in. Speedos and deboned ballyhoos were gobbled up as soon as they hit the bottom. Meanwhile on the top half of the water column we were finding plenty of Yellowtails; a mixed bag one and half pounds up to 5 pounds and pretty much a steady pick at every stop. We did also have an assortment of other stuff; a couple of big Kings and a few Yellow bar Jacks as well as several big Amberjacks. I spent the entire time on the Atlantic side fishing just offshore of Rebecca Shoals. In some spots we had dirty green algae water and others we found some dusty blue water and the fish.
Tight Lines,
Captain John Oughton
1-800-763-3047
