By Capt. Chris Johnson
What a difference a year makes!
This time last year, the Keys were just beginning the long road to recovery from the devastation caused by Hurricane Irma. While many of our citizens are still in the process of rebuilding their homes and lives, our resorts, restaurants and attractions have been ready for tourists for several months.
And, the fish are ready for you too!
The main attraction during October is the reef bite, with the primary target yellowtail, mangrove and mutton snappers. Since no particular depth outperforms another, try various areas until you hit the magic spot. We usually start on the deeper edge of the reef and work up shallower until we find the snappers.
And, don’t be afraid to get up on the patches this time of year. Quite often, this is where you’ll find most of the mangroves.
Once you locate the snappers, keep the chum flow nice and steady. Water temps in the low 80’s keep the snappers’ metabolisms revving on high and, hence, they need to eat more. We use YellowtailUp and Chum Drop together with ground chum to keep the fish up and feeding in the slick.
You may find an occasional grouper in the same areas, generally blacks and reds. Live pinfish or ballyhoo are your best baits.
The ballyhoo can be found in the chum slick behind your boat. Fish one on a jighead on or near the bottom to attract mangroves and muttons.
If you’d like to put a few fish in the box for the smoker, we usually have plenty of cero mackerel this time of year. They can’t resist a live ballyhoo fished out in your slick with a 2/0 or 3/0 Owner SSW hook plus a short piece of #4 wire to prevent bite-offs.
We like to hook the ballyhoo in their back toward their tail as the mackerel will quite often but the tail off the fish on the initial strike. This will get a hook in them immediately.
These October ceros average four to six pounds, but really big ones over ten pounds are common as well.
Fishing offshore, we have plenty of blackfin tun around the humps. Most are in the five- to ten-pound class.
Usually at some point in October, we get a two- to three-week run of mahi. This hinges on the cooling of the water temperatures in the northeast area of the country, thus sending the dolphin south. When they do show up, most of these fish are gaffer size in the 10- to 20-pound category.
The usual assortment of lures – blue and white or pink and white – will serve you best. Rigged ballyhoo are also a good bet. Make sure you have live bait with you as the bigger fish will quite often refuse an artificial but gladly gobble up a pinfish tossed in their direction.
We’ve had a much better lobster season than in 2017. So, we’re still doing some lobstering, depending on the weather and how cool the waters get. But, that will come to an end this month.
Capt. Chris Johnson specializes in offshore, reef/wreck, gulf/bay, saifish, shark, tarpon and lobster fishing with SeaSquared Charters. For daily fishing reports with pictures, please click over to http://Facebook.com/MarathonFishing.
305-743-5305 | SeaSquaredCharters.com