Recent offshore fishing reports from the Southeast region.
SLI Action
Florida Sportsman member: e-money
Two minutes later we had a HOT sail lit up behind our daisy chain. It was lit up and going back and forth between dredge, chain and pitch. I pulled chain away, Fred expertly dropped back, sail ate, was in air, jumped twice and we were tight!
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Dinner Guests
Florida Sportsman member: greenie-slayer
Saw some reports recently of some nice tripletail being caught and thought I wouldn’t mind inviting a few home for dinner. Sunday we headed out with my dad and brother and the first spot we pull up too yields a nice seven pound tripletail.
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New Years Wahoo
Florida Sportsman member: Lazy Bones
Pretty good swell with chop on top for the ride home, luckily we were cruising in the troughs. Lucky enough to see the first two sunrise and sunsets of 2016 from the boat and catch some good fish go along. Hopefully it’s a good omen for the rest of the year.
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Boynton Bull
Florida Sportsman member: Reel Retreat
I thought I saw a huge flash of mahi blue but wasn’t sure so I didn’t wanna get my hopes up. But when I saw a cow around 10 to 15 pounds hit the other line as we were clearing I knew then it was a pair and this thing put on a show.
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SLI Tunas
Florida Sportsman member: Maribella
Another pass and I’m in the process of setting a rigger bait in the clip and the line starts smoking for a few seconds then nada. It turns out it was a blue marlin that went over to our other rigger bait and popped off before we had much to say about it. It did put on a nice show on the surface as he was greyhounding away though.
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Bull in the Inflatable
Florida Sportsman member: b1gdog83
I caught and release a few more slingers. I came across some type of blue plastic 15 gallon bucket/drum. I trolled passed it and get hit (big bull) on my 12 pound test spinning rod. I was losing line fast and was afraid I was going to get spooled. I was by myself so I had to back down and fight the fish at the same time.
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Southeast Mixed Bag
Florida Sportsman member: e-money
We set up shop at about 7am, and within two minutes we had a nice gaffer in the box.
We reset and get SMOKED, this time it’s a nice king. Put em back out and a stud Wahoo misses the first time, then comes back at 50mph and gets it!
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Evening Bite off Boynton
Florida Sportsman member: bluechip
I’m on the reel and start reeling like crazy as he’s definitely eaten it by now. The clip pops, I come tight, he goes crazy. We were treated to a very nice show for 10 minutes and had him to the boat.
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Maiden Voyage Success
Florida Sportsman member: dpdash
Found great conditions in 200′ and put a couple of ballyhoo’s out. Ended up finding an incredible edge with huge mats and flyers in 600′ with nobody around. After 15 minutes we found a few dollies and a little tuna for sashimi.
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Southeast Bottom Bite
Florida Sportsman member: colossalcatch
We headed over to another spot that is known to have some big gags and blacks all over it. Set back up and threw out some flat lines and started bending rods , once again muttons and mangos were hitting the deck.
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Jupiter Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: Black Attack
Crew wanted to make a run for it, so offshore we headed to the swordfish grounds. Before we even got our full spread out, the long feather chain gets nailed and gaffer Mahi on. Landed the fish in short order and reset our spread.
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Hoos on the Other Side
Florida Sportsman member: paulboat
Long story short, we worked hard for it. Water was dirty, got one north of Sandy and the rest at the corner where we found clean fishy water.
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Inflatable Phins
Florida Sportsman member: b1gdog83
On the way back in we stopped at those same weed lines we saw on the way out and caught two 8 pound fins. We had the school around the boat a couple times but just like the fins under the wooden crate they seemed lethargic and were not hungry.
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Weekend Recap
Florida Sportsman member: Angler Managemnt
The action started in 140 and was hot all day from 70-130 feet from trump to breakers. We were able to hook lots of fish and the lady anglers did their best and we captured four nice fish over three hours. They were able to get 4th place dolphin and 4th place King however the prize money was paid only three prizes.
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First Place Hoo
Florida Sportsman member: 1974Donzi
The fish was brought to the boat quickly and we didn’t realize it was a wahoo until it was right next to the boat. Fish was landed (21.6 lbs) and total chaos broke out on the boat! Sarah knew right then and there that she got her first wahoo and possibly first ladies tournament win. She lost her voice from screaming she was so excited!
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Fish on the Weeds
Florida Sportsman member: Mike Butcher
It didn’t look like anything was on it, so we threw a weighted mullet under it and counted to 10. Both of us came tight on fins and got them in the boat. We also caught one triple tail on a live mullet.
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First Place Phin
Florida Sportsman member: Chasentailz
So we made the call to run past the fleet. Got about 12 miles out and found a slick with some decent weeds on it. Started chunking and in no time a school of nice sized dolphin were everywhere.
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Father and Son Time
Florida Sportsman member: PaulBoat
We made it to Old Bahama Bay in under two hours, topped off the gas tank, cleared customs, got our slip, set up our lines, shore power etc. We then untied around 2pm and went out to catch dinner.
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A Bakers Dozen
Florida Sportsman member: LET’S GO
We catch two or three more and work for some time and it was either quiet or the bells are ringing as we ended up with a baker’s dozen of decent size dolphin. They are not all that big but they are easy to clean and very tasty, we threw back several that did not meet the size limit and hopefully the next trip out they will still be around and have grown considerably and put up a lot more fight.
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New Marina Record
Florida Sportsman member: Angler Management
110 feet just south of Juno today, 4 inch micro goggle eye on 12 pound spinning gear, customer fought it for 30 minutes. Was 54 in the boat and after 2 hours weighed 49.89 on sailfish marina tournament scale.
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Birthday Hoo’
Florida Sportsman member: 1974Donzi
Justin just turned 21 years old and wanted a big wahoo for his birthday. Started off high speed trolling at 5:30. No hits so I change it up to mullets at 6:00. I noticed there were plenty of flying fish everywhere so I put out a white and blue islander over a big split tail mullet on the shot gun line about 400 feet behind the boat. As I was setting up other lines, the shotgun line starts screaming.
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Southeast Offshore Bite
Florida Sportsman member: e-money
Ran out to the deep and found SICK conditions like Bill and others saw. Thousands of baits, acres of mats and starving dolphin.We caught 10 schoolies before we found the bigger fish and boxed several nice gaffers in the 15 to 20 pound range.
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Summertime Phins
Florida Sportsman member: Angler Management
Nice temperature break in about 120 to 150 feet out there with a color change. There are schools of dolphin and big dolphin around it. We’re averaging about 12 fish per charter. Get out there and get you some.
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Deep Water Gold
Florida Sportsman member: catch’emall
We decided to sneak out for half-a-day between storms and try our luck on tilefish. It took us a while to find a hungry colony, but worth the effort. Ended up with my first double header and our limit of five.
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Bahamas Wahoo
Florida Sportsman member: e-money
Forum member e-money and friends got into a hot wahoo bite off of west end. Six bites in an hour, with four coming to the boat. Nice!
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Dodging the Storms
Florida Sportsman member: BigNiner19
We had a nice knock down but didn’t stay hooked and have no idea what it was. Then after a driver switch and turn back south the drag starts screaming. Brought up a real nice black fin tuna. This fish was not leader shy one bit.
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Fishing for a Cause
Florida Sportsman member: Jfenn10
We decided for Saturday’s Bigdog Fatcat we were gonna fish some other spots south. Well it turns out it was the right move, we killed it. We ended up with 9 kings from 11 to 26.7 pounds, a short cobia, 4 keeper muttons up to 4.5 pounds, bonita, and some other bottom dwellers.
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SLI Cobia
Florida Sportsman member: LET’S GO
We then headed East to deeper water and found some promising changes in the surface and we deployed our live bait, we did some chumming and quickly gathered some large sharks behind the boat with a few good size cobia.
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Stuart Sails and More
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Dave
Back out to a different edge in 135, toss one bait out, went to grab the second rod and I look back to see a sail already chasing our first bait in the water. Talk about stopping on top of one!
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First Place Phin
Florida Sportsman member: Seamanator561
I slowly bring the fish close enough for Mike to reach out and stick a perfect gaff shot right in the melon. As him and Yoan fight to bring him into the boat is when I realize how big he really is. We get him on the deck and reality sets it!
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Fish Filled Weekend
Florida Sportsman member: greenie-slayer
We moved deeper to 200-300 feet, no bites. Well we thought no bites. As we reeled in the deep rod it had a small blackfin tuna attached to it. Weird thing was he wasn’t hooked. The circle hook just around his tail. We must have been dragging in backward for a long time because he came in dead as a door nail.
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SLI Cobia
Florida Sportsman member: LastMango
Forum member LastMango got into some cobia off Stuart in 65 feet. Bull Sharks were the ticket to success for these fish.
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Treasure Coast Dolphin
Florida Sportsman member: P@t
“Lots of life in 65 feet, so we lowered the riggers and started trolling. First knock down was at 7:20, small gaffer fin. Reset and continued to work a rip, south. Second knock down shortly after, spooled us before we could get control…”
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An Adventure to Costa Rica
Florida Sportsman member: greenie-slayer
Got the chance to venture down to Costa Rica in March to get away from work and do a little fishing. Fished with Tranquilo Charters out at the FADs. Ended up getting my first marlin and roosterfish. Got a lot of bites from marlin but being the noob that I am to marlin fishing most came unglued.
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SlI Sailfish Bite
Florida Sportsman member: Sea Monkey Too
Quickly caught 3 dozen baits and headed out to 270 feet. Wasn’t long before we had a double header sailfish. We got one and mine spit the hook. Soon after that settled down we had yet another double header sailfish hookup. This time we got both to the boat.
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SlI Marlin
Florida Sportsman member: LET’S GO
They trolled around for a bit and at the end of the day were able to score a few decent dolphin, a couple of skippies and the prize of the day, a marlin.
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Dolphin for All
Florida Sportsman member: sam50
I spot a frigate and Capt. Adam puts us in the area as 2 live gogs were sent out to slow troll along, didn’t take long and big bull is jumping behind the boat. Ian was aboard today and never caught a dolphin, so the rod was passed to him and he did a sweet job leading that fish right to the gaff.
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Southeast Phins
Florida Sportsman member: SammyT
Decided we might as well pull a spread during our beer drinking adventure. Ended up with 4 dolphin. Smaller 3 in the 28-30 inch range, and the big one went 43 pounds. There wasn’t a favorite bait among the fish today.
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Great Trip to the Other Side
Florida Sportsman member: e-money
Ran about 15 miles off and I spotted a bundle of balloons and floats then Ryan spotted the right frigate!
On the third pass I look back and see 4 20 to 30 pound phins chasing the spread! All 4 rods go off, but we went 2 for 4 with a 20 plus pound cow and about a 25 pound bull!
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SLI Solo
Florida Sportsman member: Maribella
Headed out of town for a week so figured I better slip offshore this morning. Some beautiful edges with weed out there in various depths. I opted for one in 235 feet and had two sail releases on flatlined greenies within the first 90 minutes before things got quiet.
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Sushi for All
Florida Sportsman member: footankleg
The flocks were far and few but persistence paid off and we had a triple header on. Two of the fish got cutoff either by sharks or wahoo but I luckily stayed tight to my fish. The battle was outstanding and made me promise to start doing lower back exercises.
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Southeast Bull
Florida Sportsman member: Pensacola
The day started off slow only had one phin in the box by 1pm. We then found a sweet edge with some grass and it was on! We went 8 for 10 on dolphin in 2 hours then the edge dissolved.
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Big Tuna off Palm Beach
Florida Sportsman member: frigategetsfish
After practically stopping the boat and locking the drag on this fish otherwise he would have spooled my 50 wide tiagra I start cranking the fish in which took about 30 minutes of pain and agony to get to the shock cord. The fish was almost directly straight down when I noticed the wings of the yellowfin tuna.
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Hillsboro Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: jtluongo
Two for 4 on sails just south of Hillsboro inlet in about 150 feet of water. They were hitting everything, pilchards, flying gogs, weighted gogs, you name it.
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Palm Beach Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: Angler Management
The wind overpowered the current so it kept us moving south and we fished our majority of the time just south of the breakers. We seem to float between 180 and 350 feet of water, although we really weren’t paying attention because it was really nonstop action.
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Birthday Fishin’
Florida Sportsman member: Lori Jo Fishing
Today was Cayden’s birthday so were looking for a birthday phin or hoo. We cleared the inlet to nice flat seas. About an hour in the planer pops and Cayden starts reeling gets tight and bring it to the boat. That was his first fish on the wire line. It was a nice one the biggest of the day.
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Southeast Bull
Florida Sportsman member: Bow Movement
Forum member Bow movement reported a slow weekend of fishing, but the few bites they had were good ones.
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Hillsboro Bite
Florida Sportsman member: dpdash
There were several very nice triple tails but we couldn’t get a bait to them though the hundreds of jacks and triggerfish. After 30 minutes of trying I finally was able to get a bait to the biggest one. Two jumps and he threw the hook, bummer for sure. Trolled a bit more and made several drops with only some very large Rosie’s to show, no love from the tiles.
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Boynton Beach Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: First Born
Nothing on the troll, but after a few drops at the tile grounds we got a 17 pounder, headed shallow and picked up a grey tile as well. We trolled home, seeing a lot of flyers and birds and ended up with 10 footballs and 3 average phins. Good times! Phins and tuna were landed around 200 to 350 feet.
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Harbour Island Trip
Florida Sportsman member: Off The Wall
After slowing the boat and pushing the drag way up the rod was bowed way over and we all thought we were going to have a really nice wahoo. Well on the leader that wahoo turned into a 70 pound class yellowfin. The tunas around Harbour Island are known for eating only live bait, but this one wanted a blue and white islander on cable going 18mph.
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Offshore Slammin’
Florida Sportsman member: ScottR
Got to 120 foot and the right long goes off like a firecracker, but no run. As we are discussing whether we wanted to keep this ‘bonito’ for strip baits, and the angler is cranking like a banshee, we see stripes! Here comes the hoo!
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Jupiter Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: Roc N Rol
We headed out to the bait grounds and managed to get a couple dozen goggle eyes. After the sun came up we headed south to the kingfish fleet in 70 feet off of Juno pier and joined the masses. We got our limit of Kings from 30 to 36 inches and then headed out to try our luck deep dropping for golden tilefish.
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Southeast Cobia
Florida Sportsman member: snapahead
We started drifting in 110 feet off the breakers and dropped goggle eyes half way down. Hooked up these 2 slobs back to back.
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February Phins
Florida Sportsman member: Bencarr
I was able to convince the captain to go out again and we almost had to turn around at the BIG inlet. We caught another 6 phins in very sporty conditions. 5 of the 6 were in the 10 to 12 pound range.
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SLI Daytiming
Florida Sportsman member: shady business
I asked the guys if they wanted to reset or head in and drop for some tilefish and they all wanted to reset so we did and it’s good thing we did. We hooked up within minutes of dropping and then the tug of war began. The next fish finally came to the surface and we could tell it was a much larger fish. Another harpoon shot and we drug her into the boat.
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West End Wahoo
Florida Sportsman member: Lazy Bones
The seas were nice and we were able to put 4 in the box by 10:30 or so before heading back to Old Bahama Bay to meet some friends and have some lunch. Trolled from OBB to Sandy, nothing doing. Pulled in and reset N of Memory. The wind has swung around and it was a little bumpier and wetter, but we managed another 2.
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Cat Cay Day Trip
Florida Sportsman member: PaulBoat
Forum member Paulboat and friends got across the the “other side” recently and put a hurting on the fish. Nice work!
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Small Boat, Big Fish
Florida Sportsman member: SkunkLife
Forum member SkunkLife didn’t need a big offshore boat to get out there and catch some sailfish recently. Drifting live baits was the technique used to catch the fish from his Carolina Skiff j16.
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Sails and Dolphin off Jupiter
Florida Sportsman member: millerlightdrinker
“I’ve been fortunate to fish the last few weekends, live baiting off of Jupiter. We have been catching sails and dolphin pretty consistently similar to other reports on this forum. I had the awesome experience of watching my daughters both catch their first sailfish…”
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Fun in Costa Rica
Florida Sportsman member: SLW UroCane
We went 13 for 15 on sails, with a few on fly. Lots of big mahi. A few YFTs that made for some sashimi. We also bottom fished, dropping to about 405 ft and landed a nice red snapper and a few blue-line tiles, which tasted absolutely incredible whole fried that night!
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Family Weekend in West End
Florida Sportsman member: PaulBoat
She came up to me and wondered how come I’ve never taken her wahoo fishing… “It’s too hard for you to reel,” I said. “I’ve seen your videos and those big electric reels,” she replied. “It can get a bit boring if we’re just running around looking for a bite,” I said. “I’m patient, I’ll bring a book and some magazines.
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Girls Day Out
Florida Sportsman member: Jupiter Double D’s
It was kind of sloppy and grew as the day went on. We put one of the girls on her first sailfish. A big one! So we ended up taking a quickie photo and then a nice slow clean release. We grabbed a mahi and then a mutton when the girls said they weren’t feeling too good. So we went in a little early.
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Limiting Out on Wahoo
Florida Sportsman member: Hooklesslure
Turns out we never ran out for dolphin because we were catching up wahoo all morning on the out going tide. The current was running south and a front was visible just to the north. We were fishing with two wire lines and a 80 wide with braid and a variety of trolling lead from 16 to 48 ounces.
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Jupiter Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: RockNReeler
Becky wanted to catch some tuna, so we headed northeast of the inlet and started trolling tuna lures and a cedar plug. I had been successful here about two weeks ago, and wasn’t disappointed today. 10 minutes into the troll in 250 feet of water one, then two, rods start screaming, fish on!
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Wahoo Proposal
Florida Sportsman member: gray
As I was setting up my next bait the customer asked me to stop and video him proposing. Caught me off guard at first but it turned out pretty cool. They were really excited. We packed up and reset off the condos and got hit by a nice wahoo in 120 feet.
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Catching on the Other Side
Florida Sportsman member: e-money
The first pass 1 minute after lines were in we had a nice little gaffer and a schoolie. We reset and bam 15 to 20 pound gaffer and another schoolie. 15 minutes in we were 5 for 7 . We left em biting to hunt for wahoo.
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A First for a New Friend
Florida Sportsman member: Captain Dave
About two minutes after I was just joking and saying to Rob “I promise we’re doing everything right”, I see a sailfish out of the corner of my eye pop up on the outrigger ballyhoo. He was on it like stink on a monkey, and after a quick drop-back it was GAME ON!
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Mission Accomplished
Florida Sportsman member: dpdash
Didn’t get the third line out in 225 feet when the sail took off with the deep line. After a spirited fight, sail came up tail wrapped, quick pic with Trevor’s first billfish then some resuscitation, colors came back quickly and away he went.
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A Summer to Remember
Florida Sportsman member: Jupiter Double D’s
Forum member Jupiter Double D’s put together an awesome video of some memorable moments from this summer. With big fish caught and some great spearfishing, it was definitely a summer to remember. Nice work!
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Summer Recap
Florida Sportsman member: AFT561
Been quite busy with work and tournaments this season so I haven’t had much time, but I was finally able to put together a few videos of what we were up to this summer. Big tuna, sails, mahi, kingfish, big wahoo, the whole summer shindig wrapped up into 2 videos.
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Mahi and More
Florida Sportsman member: ScottR
Went back on the troll and all of a sudden, it went off! Singles, doubles, triples, it was a crime scene and the Mahi were on the “hit list”. We couldn’t go 10 minutes without fish pounding the spread.
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Jupiter Offshore Action
Florida Sportsman member: Angler Management
No wahoo in the AM so we live baited and caught a bunch of different fish till about 10:30 then the bite shut off. We had some cool sailfish action and it was the customers first! We also had some kingfish around early. Took one to the scale and it stood in 2nd place.
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Stuart Sail
Florida Sportsman member: rgambotz
We started the troll at 200 feet and kept the heading until we hit 300 feet, we saw 2 huge hammerheads cruising right past the boat and then 2 minutes later we see the left long line bounce once, twice and then bam fish on. A sail hit the black and purple bubbler and gives us a few jumps and then comes boat side.
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Hoo on the Troll
Florida Sportsman member: latitudeadjustment
I put out a tuna spread in 150 feet or so and headed deeper, just wanting to nail a decent blackfin. Trolled some known spots for tuna but we did not get any hits, saw a nice jumping sail fish which was very cool but no takers on our rigs.
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Woohoo for Wahoo
Florida Sportsman member: 1974Donzi
Forum member 1974Donzi has been on the wahoo. Fishing off of Palm Beach, catching multiple big “hoo’s”. High speed trolling has been the ticket for these fish.
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Big Jupiter Hoo
Florida Sportsman member: Jupiter Double D’s
In 150 feet of water off Jupiter the 80 wide starts screaming. A LONG RUN, which was good because it gave us time to clear the other 2 lines. Had to switch to low gear to get her in. After what seemed like eternity and my worry of the sharks biting her in half on the way in, I grab the leader and Derek sinks the gaff!
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Palm Beach Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: e-money
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