By: Capt. Tony Young
It is hard to believe we are now jumping into 2025! Looking back on the previous year, it’s hard not to think about the incredible fishing and spearfishing we have been blessed with. From the yellowtail spawn in April/May to the amazing offshore Mahi season, it truly was a year to remember. Moving now into 2025, we have seen this trend continue. There is a lot of bait around and this has our winter pelagics fired up, we are in for an amazing January!
It is fun to watch our different fisheries shift each year and even though you might not think about it, all species seem to play off one another. With the amount of bait available on the reef and wrecks, we have been seeing more wahoo than previous years. Along with wahoo, come big jacks and sailfish. It is all about food and there is plenty of it. Coming into January, we are in the prime of wahoo season. This will be one of the best years of Wahoo fishing/diving we have had, so gear up and dive in!
I don’t use live bait very often for wahoo fishing, but it’s best to dive and fish for wahoo where the bait is located. Speedos and rainbow runners are two of my favorites when it comes to wahoo fishing. For diving, we use flashers to attract the fish to us. If you’re able to, catch a live speedo or rainbow runner and hook one to the bottom of your flasher rig. Any wahoo or large jack in the area will go crazy over this! One observation that stands out in particular this season is the quantity of fish. We have dove on a few mega schools of wahoo with well over 100 fish in them and numerous small schools of twenty or so fish. With these larger schools it is very important to get a shot that will stick. Wahoo, yellow jack, and mahi will all school together around an injured fish. If you shoot and stick your shot, slowly bring the fish in and let your dive partners load up on fish as well. We often have multiple loaded guns on the boat for this very reason. However, on the flip side of things you can miss. If you miss a shot on a fish, it could be all over. We had a pack of 100 plus wahoo come through and our diver missed, just like that the school disappeared. If you don’t like your shot, then do not rush it. Come back to the surface and redrift over them, they will still be there. If you miss and the school spooks off, they won’t go far but you will need to relocate them.
When trolling for wahoo, it is easy to get excited when you hook up. Personally, I like to hear the reel scream and keep my speed up. If you’re working through a large school of fish and you keep up your speed, you can double or triple up. After the fish is done with his initial run and you’re ready to back off the throttles, do it slowly. These fish are amazing at shaking lures, and it is very hard to land a fish if they get their head turned. It is very important to keep tension on the fish at all times, I never take the boat out of gear when fighting a wahoo. Believe it or not, wahoo will even strike the leads if you’re high-speed trolling. We have even had two fish hit the same lure as well. If you have the time, it is worth painting the leads a color that matches the water. In my opinion, this will help prevent Wahoo from striking the silver lead as it cruises by them. These are a few key points that have helped us make the most of our hookups.
There are a lot of factors that play into Wahoo fishing and diving, overall, they are an easy fish to get when the conditions are right. A good way to learn these fish is taking notes of the conditions that you are fishing in. Taking notes on when you’re not catching wahoo is just as important, don’t just pay attention to the times you land one.
Same for diving, if you are not seeing them, it’s for a reason. Enjoy learning these fish and be appreciative of the time on the water. Keep in mind that the wahoo fishery has become very popular over recent years, be courteous of other divers and anglers. Help one another be successful and Dive Safe!