Miami, Florida - Offshore

Tremendous amounts of Dolphin moved into our waters this week. There wasn’t an angler around that didn’t come back to the dock without fish. The majority of the fish were schoolies from two to six pounds. Finding the fish was easy, all you needed to find was a board or a flock of diving birds. This action was good from the western edge of the Gulf Stream all the way to the eastern edge. The weather cooperated by giving anglers calm seas and clear skies. I fished in Bimini this past week and had no trouble finding Dolphin just west of the shores of Bimini as well as northeast of Great Isaac’s Light. The action should continue with only an occasional possibility of a slowdown. We did find bigger fish swimming with the smaller fish, so be prepared and have a larger bait available to offer the bigger fish. We also found good Yellowtailing east of Great Isaac’s Lighthouse around Brothers reef. We anchored in 100 feet of water and chummed, and within thirty minutes we had Yellowtail coming over the gunwales. We caught quite a few fish in the three to four pound range. As expected, a large live bait dropped to the bottom produced a huge strike, but too huge to turn him around. I’d imagine they were large Black Grouper hanging around the Yellowtail we had chummed up. Jay Bogards and his crew of anglers fished the Pompano Beach Rodeo Tournament and made the long run to Bimini and caught a Black Grouper approximately 80 pounds. A magnificent fish, but I ‘m not sure I’d want to eat a fish that big, especially one caught in the Bahamas. The threat of a fish that big having Ciguatera is too great. Other action back on our side of the ocean has been fair. Anglers are still finding Sailfish along the edge of the stream. Blackfin Tuna are still around and being caught by live bait fisherman. And Kingfish were found off Fowey Light in 120 feet of water.