Islamorada Reef Report

Brought to you from Captain Brian McCadie

If you are interested in fishing with Capt. Brian Call: 305/664-8070

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Islamorada Reef Report Update: March 18, 2009

       If you have been reading my reports the last few weeks you know that the reef has been pretty tough.  This week was definitely better than the last few thank Heavens!  The kings started biting a bit better than they have been, but they got smaller.  We caught lots of them but we had measure most of them to make sure they were keepers.  That situation is tough for us because our boat is so high off the water that if you don’t gaff the fish you lose them while lifting them into the boat a lot of the time. However, if you gaff a short fish and have to let it go you know it doesn’t have much of a chance.  For this reason when I or the mates on the Capt. Michael see a king at the boat that might not be a keeper we explain the situation to the angler and attempt to lift or “flip” the fish over the rail and into the boat. 

       We caught kings every day this week, which was nice.  It’s great to know that you have a source of rod benders that is as close to a guarantee as you can get. But that day that you count on it and they have shut off it really stinks.  As long as these fish keep biting we will keep catching them though!

       The yellowtail bite is certainly not good yet, but they have started chewing better than they have in a few months.  Capt. Chris King went out early this week with three customers and caught the limit of ‘tails before noon.  Meanwhile Capt. Skye on the Blue Heaven out of Robbie’s caught some real nice fish but only after down sizing to 6 pound test in order to get the bites.  We didn’t catch all that many of them on the Capt. Michael, but mainly due to the fact that we didn’t really fish for them as much as we fished for the kings, vermilions, lane snappers and porgies.  When we did work hard to catch them we did get a few, but they weren’t exactly flying over the rail. 

       Bonitos have been thick out there too.  Most people don’t get too excited over these fish because they aren’t the best to eat, but as a sport fish they are one of the best pound for pound. In fact on Friday a customer caught one that weighed in at 11.5 pounds on 12 pound test.  The fight was so fun he found it appropriate to have the fish mounted. 

        On Saturday afternoon Capt. Ron had the Capt. Michael out in about 200 feet of water when a 75 pound cobia ate a kingfish bait which was a ballyhoo on a three hook rig right by the boat. After 20 minutes of fighting the fish the hooks simply slid out of the fish’s mouth and it swam back down into the depths. 

Thanks for reading this week,  Capt. Brian

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Islamorada Reef Report Update: March 11, 2009

       I don’t know how to summarize this week other than terrible.  We caught fish every day, but not many of them.”  The fishing wasn’t impossible, but it was very, very hard and we had to put a lot of effort into putting a catch together. 

       The yellowtails have been non-existent just like the mangroves. You can go out there right now and go to all of the perfect ‘tailin’ spots and use all of the right tackle and most likely not come up with much to show for your efforts. 

       For this reason we on the “Capt. Michael” have been spending most of our time targeting kingfish and mutton snappers.  The kingfish bite has been sporadic and frustrating.  I haven’t seen a king over 15 pounds in quite a while.  The “snakes” have been thick everywhere we normally find the kings.  The hottest ticket for us has been the whole ballyhoo on a three hook rig, yet live bait will always out produce a dead bait. 

       Last week I was lucky enough to be able to right about mutton snappers biting like crazy.  This week we did indeed see a few of them come over the rail of the boat but it was nothing like the week prior.  I didn’t see any charter boats come in with any of them but the party boat got a hand full of them throughout the week.  Nothing too big came over the rail but I did see some nice fish caught.  The night was the most productive for the muttons this week just like the three or four prior. 

       As far as groupers go I haven’t seen a keeper in about 6 weeks.  Normally this time of year we catch lots of red and black groupers.  The few that we have seen have come out of the deeper water. 

       I would predict that the yellowtails and mangroves will  start biting soon as the water warms up, but as for now they are still hard to come by.

       One nice treat is that even though the reef is tough the dolphin have been very close to the reef which has made an easy life for many of the charter boats willing to venture out to 300ft or so. 

       Don’t get too worried about the status of the reef.  The bite is guaranteed to pick up in the next few weeks as the water warms up.  The snappers are extremely dependant on water temperature and as the air warms the water they will begin to feed heavily again and you will begin to see the yellowtails load up in the chum slick and the mangroves will start to cruise behind the boat again.

Don’t worry about how it’s been, get out there and find out how good it’s getting!

Capt. Brian

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Islamorada Reef Report Update: March 04, 2009

       I hope I’m not speaking a bit too soon here, but I would have to say we are beginning the transition from the winter fishing season into the spring/summer fish.  The two most prevalent winter species on the reef, the king mackerel and sailfish are definitely in far fewer numbers than they were just a short time ago.  On the contrary, the snapper bite seems to be picking up a bit, which is typically what you see when the water begins to warm up and the seasons starts to change.

       I don’t want to spend too much time discussing sailfish, as even though they are found in my realm this time of year the offshore boats specialize in them whereas I just dabble with them.   The kingfish however, I do specialize in.  The fish are still out there and available to catch, but it’s getting a bit tougher as the days go on.  The hottest bait has actually been live shrimp.  Cigar minnows and ballyhoo will still work but for whatever reason the shrimp are better.  The best ways of fishing a live shrimp for kingfish is to use a small treble hook on about 5 inches of wire.  Hook the shrimp in the horn or the tail and cast it back behind your boat and fish it like you are flat lining for yellowtails.  It’s best if you have enough shrimp to throw a few handfuls of them out as freebies before starting to fish.  This tends to get the kings feeding heavily and expecting to see shrimp in an area where they usually wouldn’t.  Even though they don’t typically see a shrimp floating down in the water column in a hundred and some feet of water they love to eat them and won’t think twice about doing so. 

       I prefer to anchor for this type of fishing and hang a block of chum over the side but you definitely don’t have to.  If you are confident that a wreck or some type of structure is holding fish you can pull up on the up-current side of it, throw a few free baits, wait a couple of minutes and cast your bait out into the area where you threw the freebies.  One more trick to try is to use a light jig head on the end of that wire instead of a treble hook.  Use that same jig that you yellowtail with. 

       As mentioned a minute ago, the snappers seem to be sparking up quite nicely.  The most exciting of them is the mutton snapper.  We have been finding them on the patch reefs 20 to 30 feet, but mostly on deep wrecks from 100 to 240 feet.  The bite is nothing like what it’s going to be in a month or two but you can certainly find the fish if you put in the time.  The largest fish we have put on ice in the recent future was a twenty pounder which is pictured in this issue.

       At night the yellowtails have been chewing much better than they were in previous weeks.  The edge of the reef hasn’t been all that great, it’s been producing mostly small fish.  The patch reefs however have been very consistent for fish in the 13 to 15 inch range.  One mistake I see a lot of people make in the shallow water when yellowtailing is to use too much weight.  If you are in 25 feet of water with light current using a 1/8^th ounce jighead it’s going to sink to the bottom before it has a chance to get back to the fish which may be a hundred feet back or more.  I prefer to use no weight at all, or just a tiny split shot.  This way your bait makes it back to the schooling ‘tails without getting down to the bottom where non-target species find it.

Thanks for reading,

Capt. Brian

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Islamorada Reef Report Update: February 25, 2009

       Although it seemed to tail off as the week went on the mutton snapper bite was red hot for a bit.  I saw charter boats coming in with lots of them in the ten pound range and up.  The “Fishin’ Pole” out of Robbie’s came in with a fish in the 18 pound class while one of the many muttons the “Capt. Michael” brought in tipped the scales at 20 pounds.  Capt. Ron put his angler Bob Hofstetler on the fish in about 150ft of water at night.  The fish ate a ballyhoo plug fished on a long leader, which is basically the party boat standard mutton rig. 

       Most of the boats in town came up with at least one or two muttons from what I heard.  It’s a bit early in the year for them to really be schooling up and feeding heavily but none-the-less we will take what they give us! These fish are one of my favorites because they can be caught everywhere you go.  Bayside, under the bridges, in channels, on the patch reefs, on the reef and on wrecks or other structures in water as deep at 300 feet.  I have even seen them on the flats before.  This is a pretty rare site today but from what the old timers tell me it used to be that when you went looking for bonefish you had a good shot at muttons too! Whenever I hear these kinds of stories I always tell myself “man, I was born just 50 years too late”.  I would be in hog heaven if I could go out and sight fish muttons on the flats a few days a week! 

       Other than that nice mutton bite I must admit that this week was pretty dead.  The kingfish didn’t bite as well as they have been, the yellowtails were absent, the porgies kind of shut down a bit, the sailfishing was terrible and the groupers were very few and far between.  The only thing that I really heard was biting well was the deep water snappers.  Many captains are finding the vermilion, yellow-eye and red snappers to be biting like crazy in waters deeper than 250ft.  The nice thing about these fish is that they are all fantastic on the dinner table.  When you come in with a box full of deep water snappers you should be as happy as when you catch a limit of mahi-mahi because they are better eating and last longer in the freezer. 

       Cobias are a big interest this time of year.  They are found on the reef and especially on the sand inside of the reef following stingrays.  There have been a few great days for targeting “cobes” but for the most part it has been a really weak year for them.  But don’t panic, it’s very early in the season and at anytime the flood gates could open up and you will see these tasty monsters hanging on scales all over the Keys. 

       If you read my reports frequently you will probably recall me talking about bait a lot.  This past week the bait was very hard to come by in my neck of the woods.  When you get out there and have a hard time catching ballyhoos or cigar minnows where you almost always catch them you know already that it’s most likely going to be a tough day for you.  This is because the big predators that we tend to target this time of year are here for the bait as well, and if you can’t find it they are probably having a tough time too.  When the bait moves up or down the reef the bigger game fish tend to follow suit.  Your bottom fish aren’t quite as affected because they live a bit of a different life style than a sailfish or king mackerel does.  This is why you will see the charter boats doing a lot more bottom fishing this time of year.  The dolphin aren’t here yet and the sails and kings have been tough.  That means it’s time to beat on the muttons, groupers and yellowtails. 

By the time this is in print everything could have changed completely, so get out there and see if you can’t do some damage!

Capt. Brian

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Islamorada Reef Report Update: February 18, 2009

       If you have been reading my reports for a while you will probably remember that I always like the darkening side of the moon phase.  A waning moon always seems to produce better fishing on the reef.  Thus far this has proven true yet again.  This past week brought big king mackerels, red groupers, mangrove snappers, mutton snappers and more yellowtails than we have caught in a couple of months. 

When it came to the yellowtails and mangroves the common rule was the shallower you fished the better you did.  Our hottest  ‘tail bite was on a patch reef that was 18ft deep.  We fished it repeatedly over the coarse of the week and it just kept on producing.  The only time we fished it without success was on Thursday when the water had begun to clear up.  Prior to that the water was very dirty everywhere out there and it made the snappers a lot more susceptible to our antics. 

The one fish that I was hoping to be able to come up with this week but couldn’t was ballyhoo.  The charter boats have been catching them fairly consistently early in the morning over grassy bottoms but they just haven’t been anywhere near where we typically fish in quite a while.  I love using live ballyhoo on the bottom this time of year in the patches for muttons and groupers. 

Another thing the ‘hoos are nice to have for is the king macks.  Since we didn’t have any live baits we stuck to using dead ballyhoo flat lined back in the chum slick then jigged back to the boat.  On Tuesday afternoon we fished the edge of the reef for kings and groupers.  The groupers sure didn’t bite for us that day but the kings were jumping on basically every bait we put in the water.  The big star of the day was a 45-pound king that ate a bait right before we were to head home.  We ended up pulling the anchor in order to chase the trophy which was hooked on 12-pound test.  After about 35 minutes we finally gaffed the fish and pulled it into the boat.  Not only did that monster end up in the icebox but also on the angler’s wall.  The measurements were sent off to Grey’s Taxidermy and the fish will be living permanently up in Illinois.  

Finally the night fishing really picked up for Capt. Ron on the 7:30 trip.  Thursday night he ended up boating 10 mutton snappers, a bunch of mangroves, vermilions, yellowtails, almaco jacks and margates.  He said it was constant action from the drop of the first anchor all the way until it was time to head home.  And getting home didn’t happen quite as planned as they hooked a large shark or stingray that drug the boat almost a mile in an exhausting hour of fighting before finally breaking off.  Talk about a big disappointment!!!

I think this hot action will continue for a couple more weeks, so get out there and take advantage of the opportunity.  Plus, keep your eyes out for cobias while you are anchored up or running over the sand inside of the reef. 

Thanks for reading,

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Islamorada Reef Report Update: February 11, 2009

      If you are into yellowtail fishing this was most definitely not the week for you.  The water temperature dipped below 65 degrees most days and this totally shut down the 'tail bite.  I'd say we caught a grand total of 50 yellowtails all week long and they were a hard to come by. 

       The mangroves snappers bit much better than the yellowtails, which was a pleasant surprise for me because I prefer the mangroves on the dinner table as opposed to the yellowtails and I find that they are a bit easier to catch too.  I

       The big bite was the kingfish again.  I have been saying this for about a month now and it's the same report again.  They are biting like crazy everywhere you go on every bait you present them.  One of the best bites we had was actually in about 35 feet of water on Friday with a very strong current running to the southwest.  Our prime bait was a whole ballyhoo but they were also biting on gotcha plugs, bucktail jigs and minnow plugs such as rapalas or yo-zuris.  We even caught some of them on strips of squid on bottom rigs.  Most of those bites came while the bait was being dropped down or reeled up, but none-the-less it was a means of putting fish in the boat. 

       As for the bottom bite the number one fish this week was the porgies.  We caught porgies all the way from 18 feet of water out to 190 feet.   I'd have to say that the hottest bite we got into was in about 25 feet of water and the best bait was squid.  I absolutely love porgies!  They aren't a commonly talked about fish because they aren't numerous enough for a commercial fishery to revolve around, but they are fantastic to eat and when you get into them you tend to catch a ton.  In fact, I fish 6 or 7 days a week of my life and I have the opportunity to eat grouper, snapper, dolphin, tuna, cobia and everything else available all the time and of all the fish out there I would rather eat a porgy than any of the others. 

       We didn't catch any sailfish this week on the party boat but I did see all of the charter boats in Robbie's Marina fly sailfish flags almost every day.  The Islamorada Lady II had a couple of really good days with sails and kings.  Capt. Jeff found an area holding tons of big kings in addition to sails and muttons on the bottom. 

       This past week was definitely a cold one so it dropped the water temp extremely low which will make the yellowtailing quite tough for a while.  If you like the reef I would recommend targeting kings, groupers and sailfish.  I'm not telling you that you can't catch them right now, but pound for pound you'll be far more productive shooting for the cold water fish. 

Best of luck, Capt. Brian

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Islamorada Reef Report Update: February 04, 2009

       Holy smokes was it ever a bad week to be a King Mackerel!!! We caught kings in every depth of water from 20 feet out to 240 ft. They ate everything and anything we threw at them!  As usual the best bait on the party boat was a good ole’ dead ballyhoo.  The charter boats in town used the usual live cigar minnows and absolutely crushed the kings with them.  The kings were biting on almost every wreck out there and anything else that holds any kind of bait such as blue runners, speedos, cigar minnows or small bonitas, but they were especially hot on a few spots in the 120 foot range.

       We didn’t see a whole lot of huge kings but the numbers of fish caught were staggering.  I’d say the biggest we put on the party boat this week was in the 20 pound range with the average fish being about 5 pounds.   Early in the week was the best bite and it trailed off a bit from there but they were biting well all the way up to the weekend. I saw the Islamorada Lady II come in with some nicer fish in the 30 to 40 pound range that they caught on live bait. 

       One pleasant addition to our catch this week was two sailfish.  They both ate ballyhoo while we were targeting kingfish using spinning tackle.  The first one was caught on 12 pound test while the second was on 15 pound test.  When we hook a sail on heavier tackle we usually fight them from anchor but both of these fish required us to pull the anchor and chase them in order to boat them. The one on 15 pound test became tail wrapped a few minutes into the fight which made things very difficult for us.  The fight took 2 hours and we traveled 2 and a half miles while battling the fish!  In the end we did boat the fish, take pictures and have a successful release with the fish swimming away in good health.  The only unfortunate part of this catch was that while fighting the fish the other customers were deprived of their fishing time.  In order to rectify this situation I gave everyone on the boat a coupon to fish with us again at half price.  On a charter boat it would be normal practice to catch one or two sails and the other customers just watch, but on a party boat the customers are expecting solid fishing action so I felt it appropriate to make up for the lost fishing time.

       One of the sailfish anglers was also lucky enough to take home a 15 pound dolphin  that he caught right before the sail ate his bait.  The dolphin took him all the way around the boat in a 20 minute fight before meeting the gaff.  A fish like this is a bit rare this time of year especially on the reef so we were quite excited to get him on board. 

       Friday gave us the best yellowtailing that we have had in a while.  It wasn’t very good when compared to a day in the summer, but it was fun to see the ‘tails back there in the slick and biting fairly consistently.  That was the day that the water got a bit dirty and the barometer was dropping due to a cold front on the way.  I definitely prefer a dropping barometer for yellowtailing.  This was in about 45 feet of water on the inside edge of the reef.  In unusual winter fashion the blue runners didn’t take over our slick and make it hard to get to the ‘tails.  Typically speaking this time of year the runners are very aggressive and numerous but for whatever reason.   

       Lastly, we found a nice bite of yellow-eye snappers in the 200 foot area..  They ranged from 1 to 5 pounds with the average being about 3 pounds.  If you have never eaten a yellow-eye (silk snapper) you absolutely must!  They are amazing!

Thanks so much for reading, Capt. Brian 

 

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 Islamorada Reef Report: January 10, 2009

        First off I must apologize for not offering a report last week. Our second captain on the Capt. Michael, Ron Howell took a vacation to the Bahamas to do some fishing with his father out of Eluthera.  They were able to catch mutton snappers up to eighteen pounds, dolphin averaging 15 pounds and one wahoo in the 75 pound range.  After the busy holiday season Ron deserved a chance to get out and catch some fish for himself, so congrats Capt. Ron.

       Due to Ron’s absence I got to work a bit more than normal which didn’t leave enough time for me to get on the computer and put my report together.

       Getting a bit more up to date, this past week was quite exciting with king fish, mutton snappers, red groupers, a few yellowtails and lots of porgies and lane snappers.  On the Capt. Michael we fish for the most abundant fish that every person on the boat can catch.  We tend to fish with 20 or 30 people a lot of the time so we like to target snappers and porgies that bite all the way around the boat.  This week we found lots of these tasty fish in the 100 to 200 foot range.  And, as usual, in the midst of the 1 to 4 pound fish we picked up a handful of groupers, margates and mutton snappers.

       This time of the year it’s not always all that productive to target yellowtails, as they don’t like to bite all that well when the water is under 70 degrees.  The surface temperature out there has been ranging from 63 to 67 degrees.  This cold water really shuts down the ‘tails and mangrove snappers that we catch so many of in the summer months.  This certainly doesn’t mean that you can’t catch these fish, it just means that it isn’t as easy as you’d like it to be. 

       The king macks have been a lot of fun too.  Most of the charter boat captains I talk to have been limiting out every day that they fished.  They stop in the morning to fill the livewell with live cigar minnows then fish them on a wire leader and a treble hook.  If you put a cigar minnow anywhere near a kingfish it’s most likely going to get eaten right away.

       On the party boat we use whole ballyhoo for the kings on a three hook rig.  The three hooks are rigged in tandem by attaching the eye of one hook to the shank of the one in front of it.  This creates a 6 or 7 inch long stretch of hook making it so you rarely need a wire leader in front of the bait.  This rig can be deadly while drifting or at anchor. 

       On Friday afternoon we anchored up on a wreck in about 130 feet of water.  While the customers were working on lane snappers, porgies and kings I put up our kite with a live blue runner on it for bait.  About 2 minutes after deploying the bait it got attacked by a sailfish.  Once hooked the fish started peeling line off the reel in a fast manner.  We pulled the anchor and started backing down on the fish to eliminate the chance of it spooling the rod.  The fish never jumped and it acted as if it were foul hooked, or not hooked in the mouth.  This makes the fight take a long, long time usually.  That was the case in this situation as well.  We just couldn’t gain any line on the fish no matter what we did.  Finally after an hour of fighting the fish I knew that it was indeed foul hooked and in order to land it we had to tighten the drag excessively or the fish would die from fighting so long and being pulled in backwards.  Since we don’t kill sails at Robbie’s Marina I decided to explain the situation to the angler and inform her that we had to tighten the drag even though it was very likely that this would cause the hook to pull out of the fish’s skin. 

     We did tighten the drag to what seemed to be an appropriate level only to have the hook pull out less than a minute later.  It was disappointing after that long of a fight, but the whole boat understood that the fish’s life was most likely saved by doing this.  In the end we all knew that we did the right thing.

       I’m starting to reach my limit of space I can take up in the paper, so quickly I would like to mention the mutton snappers.  We found nice muttons on Friday morning in about 120 feet eating ballyhoo plugs fished on long leaders.  The spot we were on also had a nice kingfish bite and lots of blue runners.  Don’t be afraid to try for muttons this time of year.  They may not be biting like they do in May, but they are out there and they have to eat.

Thanks for reading, Capt. Brian

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 Islamorada Reef Report: January 16, 2009

I can’t say a whole lot for the typical reef fish that we all target such as yellowtails, cero mackerels and groupers, but the deeper water fish like lane snappers, vermilions and porgies were biting like crazy this week!

       On the Capt. Michael we were able to find a few mangrove snappers biting on the reef.  Capt. Ron took his anglers to a real nice catch of these dinner-time favorites on Saturday afternoon.  He found them chewing in about 25 feet of water.  They were up in the chum slick as well as on the bottom.  People all the way around the boat were catching them using squid, ballyhoo and thread herring.  There were over thirty people on the boat and they caught so many that they had to count them to insure that they didn’t go over the 5 per person limit.  In the midst of these “grovers” they also caught yellowtails, porgies and red groupers that were a bit too small.

       Sadly, this is the only hot reef bite we found this past week.  However, we had quite a few trips of very successful fishing in the 150 to 180 foot range.  I stumbled across a wreck that I had never seen or heard of before in 160 feet of water and found it to be holding lane snappers ranging from 2 to 5 pounds!   If you aren’t accustom to catching lanes, anything over 3 pounds is a really nice fish.  On that same wreck we also came up with two mutton snappers weighing in at 8 and 11 pounds, one cobia that was just shy of the 33” to the fork limit, and about a million blue runners.  We had a few kingfish bites there as well but weren’t able to boat any of them.

       Other wrecks and rock piles in the deep water produced lots of porgies and more lanes.  None of the lanes we caught anywhere else came close to the size of the ones on the new wreck, but they were numerous.  Porgies are one of my favorite fish down here.  They aren’t too terribly big, but they taste great and when you get into a school of them you catch ‘em by the dozens. 

       We also had good kingfish action in this deeper water from time to time.  Not every spot we fished was loaded up, but when we got on top of a school of these toothy predators we had a lot of fun!  Our main bait for them is a dead ballyhoo on a three hook rig where the hooks are connected in a line.  This proved to be quite successful over and over.  A live cigar minnow blows a dead ballyhoo out of the water, but you can only use what resources you have at your disposal. 

       Alex Murphy, the mate from the Contagious out of Robbie’s told me that on Friday they had a great day with 3 sailfish and a box full of HUGE vermilion snappers!  He said the “vermies” were biting on every single drop and they were in the 6 to 7 pound range.  That’s a huge vermilion anywhere you fish, but especially in 300 feet of water outside of one of the busiest fishing towns in the Keys.  I’ve been deep dropping in the Bahamas multiple times and have never had the verms average 6 pounds, even in 700 feet of water.  Whatever Al and his Capt. Brian Cone were doing was definitely the right thing to do. 

       We are coming down off of a full moon this week so I would expect the night fishing to pick up tremendously.  The yellowtails have been out there after dark, but with the big bright moon they stayed close to the bottom and didn’t feed heavily.  Once the moon darkens a bit you will find the fish much more apt to come up in the slick and jump on your lines.  As with any reef fishing, the night bite depends completely on the conditions.   If you find that the current is running against the wind it’s most likely not going to be all that productive for you.  When this is the case you might want to run a few miles in hope of finding more favorable conditions or head on home and save your chum.  But when you get out there and the conditions are right you can catch very nice fish all year round.  Yellowtailing isn’t just for the summer, it’s just a bit easier then. 

Best of luck to ya, Capt. Brian

       What a fantastic Holiday week!  We really had what all of us were hoping for as far as business this past week!  Congrats to all of you fishermen who had a nice turn around in business this week, it was well deserved! 

       Unfortunately, I must also offer my condolences to Cheeca Lodge for their misfortune over the holiday.  It is an absolute shame and I hope that it can be rectified as soon as possible.  From myself, Capt. Brian and the rest of us at Robbie’s Marina we want you to know that we are here to help if at all possible. 

       The fishing this week was descent, as compared to the previous few.  We had amazing weather almost every single day which made it possible for boats to target every available species out there including blackfin tunas, mutton snappers, groupers, kings, yellowtails and so on. I saw the Blue Heaven out of Robbie’s come in with very nice muttons, kings, and even one awesome red snapper!  The red snappers aren’t incredibly common around here so whenever you see one or two come back to the dock it causes quite a stir.  I’m not sure how the fish was caught but I would have to assume it was in rather deep water on a long leader rig with fresh or live bait.  Another nice bottom catch was brought in by the Islamorada Lady II with Capt. Jeff Everson.  They found quality mutton snappers eating live cigar minnows that the kingfish didn’t eat before reaching the bottom. 

       Almost all of the boats that targeted sailfish this week came up with a few, but all in all it wasn’t the best week for these fish.  Some speculate this is due to the calm weather, others feel it’s due to the heavier than normal fishing pressure they got on the busy holiday, and others just attribute it to the nature of fishing, some days are great and others are bad.  One way or another if you were out there this week the weather alone made it a great day for you. 

       On the Capt. Michael we had some decent yellowtailing throughout the week on patch reefs and on the inside edge of the reef in about 40 feet.  I can’t say we ever had a red hot bite going, but if you worked at it you could come up with dinner on a four hour trip.  The nights have been the best bite for ‘tails recently according to Capt. Ron from Robbie’s.  He says that if you really want to target nice yellowtails come out after dark and he’ll find ‘em.   They’ve also been catching a few kings and a lot of porgies on those night trips. 

       One nice change of pace was that we had a couple of good trips out in the deep water catching vermilion snappers, lane snappers and porgies.  I can’t remember the last time I got to write about “vermies”.  They are definitely one of my favorites out there so it was really nice to catch a bunch of them.  The nice thing about these delicious fish is that once you get on them you can usually catch a ton of them, and as already mentioned they are great on the dinner table.   We found them in the 180 foot area for the most part and they were mixed with lanes and porgies.  None of these are incredibly huge fish, but they are a lot of fun when you can catch a bunch of them and your bait gets eaten as soon as it hits the bottom! 

       The kings are still snappin’ out there in all the usual spots.  They have been an staple for almost every boat fishing as the sails have been slow but the kings live in the same general area.  If you aren’t getting action from the sails you can almost always bend some rods with the kings.  They are a blast to catch and although they have a bad reputation on the table, they are quite good when cooked fresh or smoked. 

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 Islamorada Reef Report: December 31, 2009

       One of the most exciting occurrences this week:  more people in town and more boats out fishing.  This helps me talk to more captains and write a better report for you.

       I’d have to say that the hottest bite of the week was the kingfish.  We were able to find them biting basically everywhere we fished inside of 300 feet of water.  I heard similar reports from basically every captain I talked to from Marathon to Key Largo.  All the usual baits were working, but cigar minnows, as usual, were the hottest ticket.  We were able to catch them as shallow as 20 feet.  I have definitely found that ballyhoo are the best bait in these shallow patch reefs.  This is most likely due to the fact that they are mainly feeding on “hoos” in the patches, making them the meal of choice.

      Speaking of ballyhoo, they are a necessity for fishing the reef this time of year because you need them for sailfish, which makes them number one on all of the charter boat’s lists when they leave the dock in the morning.  They have been plentiful around the different sanctuaries in the Islamorada area.  That’s certainly not to say that’s the only place they are, but it’s been very consistent in those areas.  All you need to catch ballyhoo is a block of chum, a cast net and a little luck.  Once you have a livewell full of  ‘hoos you have the first step needed to make a great day on the water.

       Yellowtails are another important topic in our area, so it’s only proper to talk about them for a minute. They have been biting as well as you can expect for this time of year in the patch reefs and on the main reef line in the 40 to 60 foot range.  They aren’t coming up into the chum to the point where you can see them, like summertime yellowtailing,  but they most definitely are there and biting.  Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean you are in the wrong area.  They only way to truly find out if you have ‘tails in your slick is to give the spot a good 20 minutes of fishing and see what you catch.  It always helps to have confidence in your spot, but if you are new to the area and don’t know if you are in a productive area you simply need to fish the spot hard and try different presentations and techniques.  You do have to draw a line between wasting your time and impatience if they aren’t biting though.  My rule is 20 minutes.  If I haven’t caught my target in that time I move on to another spot. 

       The grouper bite has been a bit disappointing for us lately.  I haven’t seen any boats bringing in any in a couple of weeks.  On the party boat we have been catching lots of short red groupers, but not a single keeper.  It seems as though the bite was much better in November, however they do reside here and if you pay your dues and put in some time you should be able to find them. 

       The Islamorada Lady II caught a real nice mutton snapper while using live cigar minnows on a down-rigger on Friday.  Normally you would never use wire when fishing for muttons, but it’s amazing what a live bait will do to a predator like a mutton.  When they see that bait separated from a school and all alone they almost can’t pass it up, regardless of the wire. 

       I hope this report can help you in your next fishing trip, till next week – get on the water - Capt. Brian

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 Islamorada Reef Report: December 24, 2009