Wreck Fishing After The Hurricane

After Hurricane Irma the offshore wreck fishing has been like Jurassic Park.  Everyone over the last two months has been dealing with home repairs or even boat repairs so they haven’t been on the water.  This has made the fish a whole lot dumber than normal so they are willing to eat baits they might have turned their noses up to before the storm.  Here’s a family with some young anglers holding a pair of Bonitas they caught on cut bait while fishing one of these offshore wrecks.

One of the bonus’ we have had this month was the mini season of Red Snapper.  Over the last several years Red Snapper has been a catch and release only species here in the Marathon area of the Florida Keys.  Recent scientific data has shown the number of Red Snappers is bouncing back to a level where recreational fisherman can keep on during the mini 6 day season.  Even though it is exciting for us to be able to keep a few fish the honest truth is that Red Snapper are so abundant here in the Marathon area they have almost become a nuisance.  There are wrecks that hold so many Red Snappers that you can’t catch any of the other species of fish down there.

Earlier this month I was able to take out one of my neighbors on Duck Key.  He had some long time friends visiting him down from Maryland and wanted to take them fishing for a afternoon half day trip.  We started out on the reef fishing for Yellowtail Snapper.  The current was ripping which is what you really want to get them biting.  This 10 year old boy was a fish catching machine.  He caught nearly all of these Yellowtails on light tackle in about an hour while release several other smaller fish.  After that we ended up hitting a wreck in about 200′ of water and caught several other species of fish including Amberjacks, Margates, Red Snapper, and Triggerfish.

My new Dock Sign is finally up.  Artist Caleb Goins hand cut and assembled this awesome piece of art all made out of Aluminum.  He makes all kinds of custom art pieces including signs, Yeti up kketches, logos, wall art, and much more.  For more information check out his Instagram page