05-18-2002, 01:07 AM
Once again it is time to get caught up with the fishing reports over the past few days. In general, the conditions offshore have been less than ideal. The blue water has been out as far as 800 feet on some days. Dolphin fishing has been generally on the slow side. The bright spot about offshore is that in the late afternoon there have been some good fishing moving through the area. Inshore, the tarpon fishing has been excellent in the evenings. The fish have been feeding on crabs and the bite has been starting about the last hour before sunset till on after dark. There have been some real bruisers readily feeding. Here are the day by day report.<br><br>May 14<br>Tarpon fishing was hot. That is for all the other boats that were down there at Government Cut this evening except for me. We have a saying that everyone takes their turn in the barrel. Tonight was my night. It wasn't until 10:30 pm that we finally got our first strike. The fish made two jumps and not one of the rods I had out responded. We finally figured out which one it was and we were off to the races. The fish raced straight to the Cut and that is where the majority of the battle took place. We were happy to catch the one fish and when it was released, we headed home to Spinnaker Marina.<br><br>May 15<br>My first day fishing offshore in about a week. After last night's session with the lack of tarpon bites, I was hoping that today would not be a continuation. We ran offshore and trolled around looking for signs of dolphin. We passed by a couple of Styrofoam balls with rope attached to them and picked up an 8 pound bull. And that was it till the last hour of the day. Back inshore to 110' south of the Sea Buoy, a frigate bird was working the surface. With high hopes of some action, the outrigger line popped and we caught a 10# barracuda. Well!! It was a start. A blue runner was fired back out and immediately we were hooked to a sailfish. It made three grey hounding leaps and was streaking away from us when the line went slack. A broken leader wire was the culprit. A quick run back to when the hawks were and once again the blue runner got hit almost immediately. This time it was a large dolphin. As we got the fish about half way to the boat, the dolphin spit the bait out. What in the world is going on?? Chasing the hawks again and trolling dolphin seniors got us hooked up in no time. Other fish followed the hooked one in and we hooked up another large fish. The rod from the first fish was put in a rod holder and we were concentrating on the large fish. The rod holder fish made a jump and threw the hook. ANOTHER MISSED FISH!!! OK let's get the big on. Everything was going fine until it bit through the 50# leader and released itself. Must be that I'm still in the barrel!! As quick as the action started, it came to an end and that's the way we finished our day.<br><br>May 16<br>Our first bait was put in the water at noon. The highlight of the next 4 hours was a remora. Running offshore again, we watched as a free jumping dolphin was getting out of Dodge. That fish made a dozen leaps and did the 300 yard dash in about 10 seconds. Something big must be in the area. Another 30 minutes of trolling produced nothing. Working our way back north, we found a large group of birds working over busting tuna. We hooked three skipjack tuna and the barrel time was over. We turned to the west to start in and before we went a 1/4 mile, I watched a good sized fish grab the dolphin senior on the center flatline. It showed its self in a matter of seconds. A white marlin of about 70 pounds. We were almost spooled twice, and survived a possible cut off from a freighter that passed within 100 feet of us as the fish was moving offshore. We released the fish and were late getting back in, however, Bill didn't mind being late to his dinner engagement.<br><br>May 17<br>Catching bait today was very easy. Sometimes that's an indication that the fishing offshore might be slow. One our first drift, we missed a kingfish on the downrigger. Next it was a double header bonito. Then a king cut off the hook on a straight mono leader. Then the action went dead. Several moves with no action, so it was time for a trip offshore. Once again we found the tuna action. Today we hooked one and lost it when it shot its head. After chasing the fish to Hallandale, we called it quits and came back inshore. The downrigger produced a spanish mackerel and moving back to the Haulover Inlet area, we caught a 12# kingfish to finish our day.<br><br>Captain Dave Kostyo<br>Knot Nancy Fishing Charters<br>305 620-5896 Charter<br>305 732-2628 Beeper<br>www.rnfl.com/knotnancy<br>nkostyo@bellsouth.net<br><br>