Waiting For The Wahoo To Show Up!

The fishing in the Lower Keys was decent this week. We had a good sailfish bite early on, but that has died out these past few days.  The wahoo haven’t really shown up yet, but hopefully we will see more of them this week, on the falling moon.  There have been some wahoo caught, but nothing like the last month.

Offshore Wrecks & Deep Dropping Has Been Good

  The bite on the offshore wrecks has been good, with mutton snappers, african pompano, and blackfin tunas.  The kingfish have been really thick around the reef and there have been some big kings mixed in. We have also been doing a bunch of deep dropping this week because we have had some beautiful weather and yellowedge grouper and snowy grouper are open.  The deep drop bite was really good both days, we caught our grouper limit quickly and had some bonus tilefish and rosefish as well.  When I am deep dropping, I use an electric reel lined with 100lb Bullbuster braid and I make my bottom rigs with 200lb Bullbuster monofilament.  The cold front arrived today though, so no fishing, but hopefully it will mix things up offshore and the bite should pick up again. 

The fishing in the backcountry has been great this past week.  I know of a a lot trout caught in the basins earlier in the week, when the temperature was cooler.  The barracudas were all over the flats earlier in the week too and they were super aggressive.  Over the last few days as temperature warmed up, the barracuda bite has died out, but guides started seeing some bonefish and permit on the flats.  That’s a great sign for some productive spring fishing.  I do not know of any schools of tarpon showing up yet, but with the temperature warming up, we may see our first push of tarpon soon.