Islamorada, Florida Keys
Happy Holidays to everyone and hope all is well. This was an exciting week here in the Keys. The week started out with good action along the reef edge as the sailfish have been pouring through in great numbers. Monday thru Wednesday was the best of it with catches up to 15 fish, the average was about 9 per boat…some great fishing! The kites were very productive and we also had a day in there where we were chasing bait showers along the reef edge. The bait has been plentiful, lots of ballyhoo, cigar minnows and goggleyes. The end of the week we had preety good reef fishing. We had a few family groups so reef and bottom fishing seemed to be the most productive. The winds laid out nicely and we had some current running down the edge so this allowed us to do some mutton and yellowtail fishing. This worked out great as we had several muttons over 10lbs and a few under.
The yellowtails were a little tough being that the water is gin clear, however, we managed to pick at them pretty good. We averaged about 25 to 35 yellowtail per trip and everybody was happy. The King Mak’s have started to move out from the gulf and that fishery has picked up nicely. We are getting another cold front today so I would imagine that the sailfishing will be very good the next few days.
Captain John Oughton
