I wait the entire year for the June fishing bite offshore. Every June, the schoolie sized mahi-mahi form up into large schools and migrate past our coastline, feeding voraciously on everything that they come across. It can be really exciting going offshore in search of these schools of fish. One school alone can have 50+ mahi-mahi fish within it. Mahi-mahi have a very useful character trait in that they don’t leave each other behind. In other words if you find a school of mahi-mahi and have one hooked up, just leave him swimming out there on the line and the entire school will stay right with the boat. It can take some time trolling out there to find a school like this, but what a pot of gold it is to find. Once you find them, just set the boat on a drift and bail them on 20 pound spinning tackle. I usually use dead squid for bait until the fish start getting hook shy, and then I switch over to casting out live pilchards and ballyhoo.
Inside the edge of the gulfstream, there are some other sea monsters to be caught. Big amberjacks are still biting around the shipwrecks, as are several different species of grouper and even sometimes cobias. Wrecks over 200′ deep work the best this time of year and live bait always gets the most aggressive bite. Some of our largest big game sharks are around in June. Hammerheads and dusky sharks are being caught in 300-400′ of water. The best technique is to sit into the current and drop down big bloody baits (a bonito or kingfish works best), bumping the boat slowly in and out of gear to hold a position. Give it some time and a huge gameshark will hone in on the scent and take the bait. Trolling the reef in June is a lot of fun and is the best method to get in on the action. We can catch a lot of kingfish, bonitos, barracuda, blackfin tuna and wahoo trolling 100-200ft of water. As the surface water temperature heats up, fish tend to go deeper, so you will get your best bites on deep planer baits if you are trolling.
June is a great time of year for action, both on the reef and further offshore.
Get ready for some good fishing. Tight lines everybody.
Capt. Brett Magers
New Lattitude Sportfishing
(954) 707-2147
www.newlattitude.com