Recent offshore fishing reports from the South region.
Excellent Mahi Bite
Florida Sportsman member: conquistador
We fished out of Fiesta Key around 300-500′, competing in the 28th annual Dolphin Rodeo Tournament. There were flocks of birds everywhere, all those that were hovering had either dolphin or tuna under them. We used a combo of plugs, feathers, and naked ballyhoo in the spread. We caught 30-40, but we started throwing peanuts back after number 17. We ended up placing 4th with a 13.4 pound bull. The winner was 57lbs, 2nd 23.6, 3rd 16. 27 boats in total, every one of them caught at least a dozen peanuts. The bite is on fire!
Bluefin Puts Up a Fight
Florida Sportsman member: Poseidon10/31
We were kite fishing when we saw the bluefin tailing about 50 yards north of our spread. We immediately started pushing south while I got out the Penn 130. It was only moving 5-7 knots, while the others are flying south at 10-15. I hooked on a whole five pound bonito and pitched it out 100′ behind the boat. In 80′ off Key Biscayne, the tuna made a hard turn offshore and aired out on my bait. I dropped back and we got tight. What we did capture doesn’t do the fish justice. I’ve never caught anything this big, but I’d say it was certainly over 100″ and 600 pounds.
Groupers Go Home
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
After we traveled a little to find moving water, that’s where we had a back to back grouper bite which ended up in the cooler. Muttons where hitting as well and we put some in to end up with a color full cooler.
Reef Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
We have been catching plenty of yellowtail and releasing some very nice groupers and a few muttons. The bite is getting better each day. There’s plenty of bait on the reef between 50 and 70 feet, speedo and ballyhoo have been getting chased by AJ’s and mahi.
Hillsboro Tuna and Sailfish
Florida Sportsman member: JVL
We saw an explosion on the long bait and it was game on. After 30 minutes of googan avoidance, digging, head shakes and death circles, the silhouette of a trophy blackfin tuna appeared.
Pompano Beach Wreck Fishing Amberjacks
Florida Sportsman member: landshark
This AJ stripped 250 yards of locked down 80lb braid in under a minute. After a 15 minute fight, Brook landed her biggest AJ ever and on a jig too!
Wreck Fishing Miami
Florida Sportsman member: Yeaaa_Chris
We had to work harder than usual for bait, but got enough for the day. The goal was to get my buddy on his first AJ, and after a few swing and misses, he got his wish. Not going to lie, it was pretty funny watching him get whooped. The jacks are starting to stack up on the wrecks and the bonito are moving in.
Reef Fishing Variety
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
The reef bite is growing better each day as summer is approaching. The bait on the reef is abundant, drawing into shallow water the pelagics, including mahi and tuna. As soon as the chum goes in the water, we are having ballyhoo and speedo come up, followed by a big yellow ball of yellowtails.
Boca Raton Tuna and More
Florida Sportsman member: trousertroutman
We continued this pattern of drifting from deep to shallow working the jigs and ended up with five blackfin, one skipjack, two triggers and plenty of arm wrecking ajs and bonito.
Reef Fishing Improving
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
We started catching a fish on each bait put out. A few minutes into the steady catching, I set up to put one bottom rod down with live pilchards. It worked. We hooked up to a 20.5 inch mutton and another 19.5 incher, then came the one that almost pulled the lady angler over.
Hillsboro to Boca Bites
Florida Sportsman member: holdemhook1
The bite wasn’t as strong as last weekend, but there are fish around. It just depends on the conditions if they will bite. We caught kings and some dolphin. Weather was great.
Port Everglades Mixed Bag
Florida Sportsman member: gsweaver
My boy wanted to go “trigger fishing”. We had one block of chum and two packs of silversides. We set up in 55 ft of water drifting and this king hit a silverside on a jighead. It was our first kingfish ever.
Port Everglades Tuna
Florida Sportsman member: T – L U V
We put out a spread that consisted of one ballyhoo, one squid, and a black and purple islander with a bonito strip. The first fish hit around 3pm in 680′, just north of Dania pier. Got him in the boat and set back up. We made another pass in the same area and got the second fish.
Miami Snapper and Grouper
Florida Sportsman member: boneheadhunting
We managed to get a couple yellowtail with a super strong current. The bite on the bottom was great.
Homestead Mixed Bites
Florida Sportsman member: Hooked4Reel
All-in-all, the day ended with one cero mackerel in the cooler along with twenty three yellowtails, ranging in size from 13″ to 18″.
Winter Reef Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: Miami mutton
These approaching cold fronts turn the bite on good. The yellowtails have been bigger and we will continue to catch bigger ones by next month. Here off Miami and upper to middle keys, the muttons are very shallow or very deep. Keep that in mind to target them in winter.
Port Everglades Mixed Bag
Florida Sportsman member: Jesse8410
The seas were flat and calm. We headed to the wreck and set out a few flat lines and some bottom baits. I had two cut offs on the flat lines, one short mutton, one keeper vermilion and an AJ down low. The wind picked up and set up the kite in another spot. Picked up a king.
Reef Fishing Miami
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
The yellowtail bite was really good, we were targeting them shallower than usual. We also caught some keeper muttons and a nice grey, all in the same spot. We got there close to 9:am and by 10:30am we had close to a five man snapper limit, which we managed to complete, along with a few macks, bonito and a barracuda.
Dania Beach Tuna and Dolphin
Florida Sportsman member: gsweaver
We trolled black/ purple and black/red feathers south of Port Everglades. First fish in was a 22″ schoolie in 220 ft just south of Dania Pier. Then three more blackfin all in the same area. I was surprised to find them in that close.
Port Everglades Mahi Haul
Florida Sportsman member: ProfessorO
A few seconds later our second pilchard is hit and we have another nice fish on. We get another line in the water and another fish on. We slowly fight these fish and gaff both of them. 15 and 25 lb cows.
Miami Reef Fishing Variety
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
Fishing has been good on the reef with a good mix catch, we have been getting yellowtails, muttons, grouper, reds and blacks and even the rare, dog snapper.
Chasing Kings in Haulover
Florida Sportsman member: paulrxp
Winds were pretty light out of the E/SE less than 7mph with a very weak south current and high tide before 9am, as well as a Full Moon. Good pods of ballyhoo are out on the deeper reef and edge past 100ft and they were getting whacked by Kingfish, some of which were rocketing. We were able to catch our limit of Kings pretty quick with the live finger mullet, and numerous cutoffs on jigs/verticals, too many to count. It’s near impossible to keep them away from the Kings.
Pavilion Key Cobia
Florida Sportsman: Raquel Waxon
Raquel Waxon, from Pembroke Pines, FL caught her first, legal sized cobia on a 10 lb. spinning outfit, one mile off Pavilion Key.
Check out our Facebook and other catches.
Highland Beach Cobia
Florida Sportsman member: rhino2000
I got out about 7 am and anchored up at about 80 feet. I put out some chum and had very little current. Had some fresh dead gogs and used a knocker rig and tortuga bottom rig. This cobia bit the tail half of the gog. Shockingly he was caught on a Penn Spinfisher 5500 with 30lb braid and 30lb flobo leader.
Miami Reef Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
The fish are moving shallower and the bait on the reef is being chased by Mahi and tuna and macs and kings, in the mix there are sailfish also, big sport fishing boat charters are running the reef line following birds and showering baits and hooking up to all the above. The bottom fishing has been good with limits of yellow tails happening on most trips.
Hollywood King Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: T – L U V
We picked up and headed south and set up off Hollywood. Chatted with Neal from Plastered a bit and it was slow for them as well. After about an hour, we finally picked up a ten pound king near the tenneco. We Circled back around and we are tight with a good fish.
Miami Reef Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: Smokin_Reelz
We went out last Saturday from Miami to see if the Cero Mackerel were there. They are indeed. They are, along with about a billion ballyhoo. They weren’t that aggressive that day, as we caught only a few. But we went to the edge for about 10 minutes and caught 1/1 on sails.
Hillsboro Wreck Fishing
Florida Sportsman member: MH79
I picked off a couple decent mangroves on the bottom and tons of large blue runners on freelined jigs. My girl caught a decent bluefish on the bottom, which we threw back. I starting getting cut off a lot by what must have been bluefish or Spanish mackerel … which was a reminder that winter is right around the corner.
Miami Beach: A Trip To Remember
Florida Sportsman member: reelchaos27
We followed for a bit and slowly pulled up to this mammoth whale shark finning down sea. It was loaded with Cobia of all sizes. We sprung into action and started pitching baits. We all hooked up, had a few tangles, and a couple remoras to make things interesting.
Port Everglades Sails
Florida Sportsman member:TLUV
Motored out through a sloppy inlet and headed south to do some slow trolling. Setup in 150 feet off of Hollywood. Within the first 10 minutes, we were 1 for 2 on sails and had a cutoff from a king.
Miami Live Baiting
Florida Sportsman member: Ghostrider
In short order we managed to sabiki only a few threadfins and got a net full of ballyhoo.
made it to the edge and put the baits out, a few minutes later we missed a small dolphin that tried to eat a large ballyhoo.
Catching Dinner
Florida Sportsman member: gdholbrook
A quick afternoon trip paid off, brought home some dinner. We went three for five on muttons, caught a nice black and red as well.
Family Outing
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
Here is a day I wait for every year as both my boys, join me every year. my oldest Benny Jr. had a herniated disc last week so he was on the electric and got the feel for it and started catching mutton after mutton and had a very nice black grouper surprise as i had another black on the bottom rod on the other side.
Mutton Madness
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
We have been catching some nice muttons out of Miami along with yellowtails and mangrove snapper. They continue to hit on ballyhoo. I was joined by my son, Miamimuttonman Jr. which helped me keep up with double hook ups and at one time, we had the flat line with a Mac, the boy with a yellowtail and the two bottom rods all with a fish at the same time.
Tournament Winner
Florida Sportsman member: SmittysTeam
We ran out Saturday morning and fished the 700-800 feet for awhile but nada. Decided to run further out and picked up a couple nice fish on the 52 line. Blind trolling and off a pallet. Fishing was real slow but managed to get first place overall.
Giant South Florida Swordfish
Florida Sportsman member: farinco
We made it out to the sword grounds at around 1:30PM and on the 2nd drop of the day … we get a bite way high off the bottom. We play with the bait to try and come tight on the fish and after a few MONSTER bites we get a hook in the fish. Little did we know what we had just gotten ourselves into.
North Largo Muttons
Florida Sportsman member: fulltime
Started the day with the plan to go dolphin fishing, talked with a few charter guys who said it stunk offshore. Switched gears and went bottom fishing, caught seven muttons and called it a day.
MIami Mixed Bag
Florida Sportsman member: Yeaaa_Chris
We had a few more mutton bites in 120, but we just didn’t connect. As we were picking up to head in, another small cow swam up behind the boat. My buddy had rigged up a gotcha earlier, and I just tossed it, and it got slammed right behind the boat.
Port Everglades Offshore
Florida Sportsman member: conquistador
We fished 300 to 340 feet and caught aj’s, blackfins, grouper, bonito, and missed a monster that snapped my 40 pound spiderwire. I’m now a fan of vertical jigging and love it, can’t wait to get back out there.
Muttons off Miami
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
After we had a good looking yellowtail cooler, We headed out to catch the muttons, we anchored over a good mark of fish, where we also released a nice black grouper and caught a nice porgy.
First Sword
Florida Sportsman member: wahoowillie754
So about 9:30pm we get the first hit and my cousin gets the fish boat side and see that it’s a nice fish over a 100 pounds and then the hook pulls! Get set back up on the second drift and at 11:00pm we get the second bite.
Haulover Swordfish
Florida Sportsman member: farinco
Fourth drop, tap tap, drop it down, fish on! We fought the fish for about 30 minutes and had her by the boat in short order. She was all lit up and was a beautiful sight to see.
Day Trip to Bimini
Florida Sportsman member: Tomm
We did not start fishing until around 11:00am. Unfortunately we missed the best tide (outgoing) and also the moon phase was not the best, but we took a stab anyway and landed a wahoo about 30 minutes into the troll.
Haulover Deep Dropping
Florida Sportsman member: farinco
We started the day fishing State waters for blueline tilefish and got a few really nice ones, including my personal best. We then proceeded to try and find the yelloweye snapper but they are thinning out and it was a bit of a challenge.
Miami Flags
Florida Sportsman member: miami mutton
After three times missing the spot I wanted to hit, we hit it right on the fourth try and it worked out great. We started the chum, after anchoring in 95 feet, minutes later the tails started showing up and after a few technique demos and instructions, these guys were ready to start the catching.
Muttons and More
Florida Sportsman member: gdholbrook
Forum member gdholbrook had some luck off of Miami recently. Drifting and fishing live pilchards over productive bottom was the ticket.
Wahoo Success
Florida Sportsman member: CatchDog
…
