by Capt. Dallas Hopper
It’s my favorite time of year again, springtime. There is always a lot going on in March, the Mahi are moving down the edge, tons of sailfish around and the bottom fishing bite is turned on strong.
We’ll start to see Mahi this month moving south along the edge of the reef under the frigate birds in the 200-400 ft range. Kite fishing in the spring time is super productive, well see a large variety of fish taking live gogs, pilchards or thread herring. Sailfish, blackfin tuna, kingfish, Mahi and bonita are the usual suspects. Most of the live bait fishing takes place in 130-200 ft of water.
Fishing the shallow water patches in hawks channel has been red hot! The wind has the water good and dusty and the cold fronts has the larger fish move in shallow. Plenty of keeper yellowtail, mangroves mutton and lane snapper have been making their way to the dinner table, along with porgy, cero mack’s and yellow jack.
The deep wrecks are amber jack, big muttons, vermillion snapper and of course grouper. We only have a few more months before season opens back up for those guys. Yellow tail have been chewing on the edge of the reef in the 65-85 ft range. We see a lot of flag sized fish on the edge this time of year. If you’re in the upper keys and looking to catch some fish give us a call.
Capt. Dallas Hopper
Fantastic II Charters “guaranteed fish”
305-451-2890 • www.charterkeylargo.com