North Miami Beach Area 08-16-12

Time has just gotten away from me since my last report. There’s lots to get caught up with so let’s get started.

Jan Maizler and I spent a few hours at Government Cut in the late afternoon. Things started slow and we picked at a few jack crevalle. When the tide turned, a large school of pilchards passed through the area along with as many jack crevalle as you would want to have fun catching.

James Daley, his son James, Jr., and Matthew Daley wanted plenty of action. Species or size didn’t matter, just lots of them. Between the bluerunners, yellowtail snapper, mangrove snapper, and triggerfish, they got their wish. By the end of the trip, everyone was tired and ready to call it a day.

Rudy and Rolando Hernandez, Matthew Alldredge, and Mike Malcolo caught dolphin, tripletail and a shark on their half day trip.

Bill Parr, Michele and John Gulley caught dolphin and skipjack tuna on their half day trip.

Michael Richmond, Jean and Luc Philippe, and Nelson Rivera saw plenty of dolphin action under frigate birds during their ¾ day trip. We kept eleven (11) of the twenty (20) fish that we hooked up. There were plenty of dolphin fillets for everyone.

Barry Simpson, Yasenna Camejo, Bob Shustack, and John Rictchie fished a ¾ day trip and saw loads of action both offshore for dolphin and in on the reef. Offshore, the dolphin action was outstanding. We caught them on live bait, chunk bait, and jigs. Plenty of fish, just under size, so the vast majority were throw backs. We moved back in to finish the trip on the reef. The bonito action was frenzied using both live bait and jigs. Mixed in with that action was a blackfin tuna.

Jan Maizler was back to do a bonito story. This time Ken Collette was along to help with the photography as well as catch fish. We loaded the live well with chummer size pilchards. It didn’t take long before rods started bending and the bonito frenzy began. We had plenty of action and got lots of pictures.

I went out to play by anchoring up on a few wrecks. Once again I loaded the live well with chummer size pilchards. I then added some nice large ocean herring. The first wreck produced no action. I moved out deeper and started off with a bonito on the bottom. Followed that with an AJ and then the flatline produced a sailfish as the bottom rod went off again with another AJ. Finished the 3 hour trip with a half dozen bonito.

Randy and Debbie Laffon and Mark and Jennifer Austin had tired arms and sore backs after their ½ day trip. The bonito action was crazy with 20 being caught between the four anglers. Then it was a 12.25 pound kingfish and we finished the morning off with 10 dolphin. The deepest I went was 194 feet.

Art Berardelli, David Eschmeyer, Heidi Mohr, and Lydia Owre fished a ¾ day trip. Here’s the quick totals. Lydia caught her first sailfish. Heidi caught the kingfish. Everyone combined to catch and release 35 bonito. The final fish of the day was an 8’ shark.

Brad Coren fished a half day. We had no current and green ugly water. Slow trolling baits on flatlines and the downrigger produced a 10 lb 3 oz kingfish, 2 bonito, and 2 barracuda.

Craig and Ron Liszt, Richard Rusak, and Chris Fowller started their full day trip with vertical jigging over several wrecks. The shallower wrecks had no current and the deeper wrecks had so much current that it was hard to get down to where they needed to be with the jigs. We did get the bonito chummed up and we caught several on live bait as well as the vertical jigs and also added a small blackfin tuna to the fish box. The sailfish we saw free jumping only ate our live bait chummers and not the ones on the hook. Running offshore produced a couple of dolphin on a large piece of bamboo. Back in to the reef and we got the bonito going again. After resetting the drift, Chris hooked up with his first sailfish. The next drift had him hooking up to his first blackfin tuna that weighed in at 29 pounds 1 ounce on the scale back at TNT Marine Center.

That brings me up to date. Despite the hot summer weather, the fishing has been quite good on a variety of fish.