Its been a while since I’ve posted so I have a lot of catching up to do. The great tuna fishing from last Summer continued into the Fall. The shrimp boats gave up plenty 100 plus pound yellowfins. Some days you had to have live bait to get them to bite and other days they would eat anything you put in the water. The action came to a screeching hault in November and December but picked right back up in mid January.
The lump turned on in a big way with very few slow days until about mid March. We spent our days drifting the lump with chunks of bonita and kingfish. Usually the action better in the afternoon making for some long days waiting for the fish to turn. Some days you just had to be patient. There were tons of fish in the 70-100 pound range with a few big ones mixed in. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any of the real jumbos(150 plus) but there were some around. With the new year, the amberjack season opened back up and we were able to add those to the box which was nice but the fun didn’t last long because they already closed it for the year in March.
As soon as the lump shut down, we immediately switched over to fishing the shelf rigs with live bait. At first, the pogies were spread out and tough to catch but as it warmed up, they’ve become much easier to catch. The yellowfin bite has been very consistent on the live bait. Early on in the Spring the fish were all small (20-30 lbs) but now the better fish are starting to show. The last few trips the fish averaged 40-50 lbs so things are definitely looking good for the Summer. I’ve also seen a lot of sargasso grass around this Summer, so hopefully thats means we’ll see a lot of dolphin this year.
