By: Capt. Joel Brandenburg
One of my favorite places to fish are The Marathon Humps located 25 miles south of Marathon Florida Keys, is an underwater mountain range. Sections of the humps drop as deep as almost 2000ft and the highest peak of the humps is 488ft deep. The reason the Marathon Humps is such a desirable place to fish is because it holds year-round blackfin tuna and skippers which makes it very reliable. Also, the Humps provide a variety of gamefish such as marlin, wahoo, mahi, amber jack, swordfish, wreck fish, snowy grouper, queen snapper, black bellied rosies, grey tile fish, golden tile fish, shark and barracuda. Another cool thing about the Marathon Humps is the 25-mile trip out to the humps. Most of the time while we are 
journeying out we high speed troll for wahoo or stop to fish under diving birds or next to weed lines. Sometimes on the way out we find floaters, which are objects floating to troll past or cast at. Many times, by the time we get to the humps we already have a cooler full of gamefish. Another neat thing about the humps is all of the deep drop spots in and around the humps. We like to deep drop with our electric reels on a slack or slackish tide so as to keep our long lines straight up and down. On the way to the humps and on the way 
back home from the humps we are looking for four things in this order:
#1 Birds- “Bird is the word”! The bigger the bird the better, with frigate birds also called man o war birds or sea birds are at the top of the bird food chain. When you see a frigate bird offshore its mandatory to troll or cast under it. The bottom of the food chain are the small white birds that kind of look like sparrows. We call them “gas birds” because people spend so much gas money chasing them around. When you see birds diving and moving quickly across the water they are following tuna, but when you see the birds picking on one spot a lot of times it’s mahi.
#2 Weed lines – Weed lines and weed islands can be organized or scattered. They can be sea weed or sargasm weeds. Some weed lines and weed islands have trash in them or they are clean with no trash. The ideal weed line or weed island to find and fish is organized sargasm with a lot of trash in it.
#3 Floaters – Floaters we have found is a bucket, a cooler, wood pallet, crab buoys with ropes, an air plane wing, Cuban raft, log, plastic, furniture, tire, etc. Anytime you find a floater, that floater is like an oasis in the desert. Baitfish gather under the floating object for shelter and gamefish hang around picking bait off.
#4 Look for boats that have already found what you’re looking for. “Monkey see Monkey do”. I always try to stay a football field or more away from another offshore boat, but I can remember several trips where I couldn’t find anything, no birds, no weeds, no floaters and saw a boat hanging around 2 miles away and trolled towards it and ended up finding fish.
The main thing to remember about the Marathon Humps is concentrate on the 488 ft peak. Always going to find a lot of good current. 6 knots while trolling seems to be best. When you are trolling into the current slow down, and away from the current speed up. Other than trolling at the Humps we like to use live bait and chum a lot with pilchards. We also like to go vertical jigging too. The Marathon Humps is a magical fishing hole. Try it sometime!
— To fish with Captain Joel Brandenburg of Ana banana Fishing Co., call or text him at 305.395.4212 or 813.267.4401 or visit
www.marathonfloridakeysfishingcharters.com or stop by
at 11699 Overseas Hwy, Marathon, FL