Hopefully everyone had a happy and safe New Year. For those of you that were fortunate enough to get out on the few calm days we had in between the gale force winds hopefully got on the fish. Being particularly partial to kings, I have to say they were on fire! We were lucky enough to keep our clients on the fish all day with every trip as we limited out on our kingfish. Many fish were to the 35lb range. We also released many other kings to grow and get bigger for next time. If you couldn’t find live bait don’t worry. Frozen Sardines and Cigar Minnows were working just fine. The standard double hook rigs, #4 wire with a pink/white duster were the ticket. On one of our trips, after hooking a few fish, we shut the motors off, drifted baits out the back and we were doubled up for a few hours. In the mix of the chaos, bonito and cobia were plentiful. We switched the gear out to spinning tackle and just had a blast. Fish the 80-90 foot ledges, wrecks, and reefs for best results. Speaking of Bonito…. Follow those shrimp boats because they’re usually stacked up behind the nets.
With February among us we can expect the water to finally start getting a little colder. It’s hard to say when the water temps will finally drop as we’re still having days in the 80s; got to love Florida! Talking amongst the locals we are in agreement that the cobia run this month is going to be going off pretty good. Last year many 50 plus pound fish were caught this month. Get out there when the sun is high and fish in the 50-foot ranges. Straight off Patrick is a good start and work your way north. Or start out past the shoals and work your way south. Buck tails tipped with a whole Squid works best for us but there are many other variations for cobia you can use as they basically will eat almost anything. If you have live bait, keep it handy. Sometimes when you just can’t get them to eat, throw them something live and you can watch them swallow it.
Tripletail numbers have been great this last month too and we should continue to see them until the water temperatures drop as well. Don’t leave the dock without a dozen live large shrimp. Look for any floating debris and usually there’s a fish under it. All the buoys have been holding there fair share as well. Just because they’re not on the first few sets doesn’t mean they’re not out on the farther sets. Use a live shrimp on a small jig head. Small buck tails tipped with squid works well too. Be sure to give each buoy at least 15 casts as we worked a buoy the other day and before almost giving up we hooked the 10lber that was there and his friend followed in behind him for a double header. While we were working the buoy for tripletail we had several decent cobia swim up so be sure to have a cobia rod very handy.
As long as the weather holds up keep working the edge of the stream for the mahi, sailfish and wahoo. Your traditional ballyhoo rigs work just fine. For a cheaper and equally effective way try using strip baits. Cut out strips from your bonito belly throughout the year. Strip bait followed with a small bullet islander works great. Definitely have ballyhoo with wire on the shotgun.
I hope this report helps everyone out. If you have any questions or have any pictures you would like to share, do not hesitate to give us a shout. Thanks and have a great month of fishing!