Wow. What an amazing last few trips we’ve had on the Marauder. May fishing is in full swing and the dolphin, sailfish, cobia, and amberjacks are plentiful. The wreck fishing on our past few charter trips has been exceptional. Large schools of amberjacks, kingfish, bonita, and cobia have taken up residence on the wrecks as the water warms up and many species are moving into spawning mode. While conditions have been somewhat challenging – we’ve had several days with poor (or non existent) current, no wind, and a limited bait selection – the bite has remained extremely consistent. While Pilchards have been scarce around the bug light, we’ve been picking away at large cigar minnows and keep a few goggle eyes in reserve.
This past week we fished with a crew from Texas who were looking to get into some BIG fish. With a well full of goggle eyes and calm conditions (with weak current), we dropped live bait over structure and wound up catching 7 / 10 cobia to 50lbs! The fish were so thick over the wreck at one point that we couldn’t keep a bait on the bottom more than one minute before getting bit. a 50lb cobia inhaled a live blue runner and put the hurt on one of our guests from Texas:
We finished the day with 2 sailfish, 2 kingfish, and plentfy of prime cobia on ice. We left the fishing biting and sa plenty of blackfins busting just offshore during our ride home.
After a steady two day bite of kingfish and bonita, we were definitely ready for a change of pace. Wind conditions today were just right for the ultra light kites and the bite was hot! We put our first spread out around ~140 feet south of Fowey Rocks and the long bait gets CRUSHED. 10 minutes later and Dave brings a fat blackfin to the gaff:
We iced the fish and made the run south, just off Ledbury reef where a nice edge was just beginning to form. We stuck to the inside of the edge and put the spread back out – this time with a goggle eye on the left long and a fat pilchard on the short. A few minutes later, the gog makes a terrified run for its life and then gets gulped – the fish charges the short and eats that too! To our delight, a BIG bull erupts from the water and begins greyhounding across the surface trailing both of our baits. A quick bit of acrobatics, and we’re able to bring the fish to the gaff…but man did he not want to come in the boat!
After boating the big bull (with no cow in tow), we switched gears for wreck fishing and headed a bit more to the south. One pass over the wreck and its loaded up! Todd drops a pilchard down and WHAM! The battle is on. A nice 25lb amberjack puts the hurt on Dave, but he manages it to the boat after a 17 minute fight.
We made a few more passes over the wreck but the current was screaming at 4 knts and we could hardly stay in position. After getting pushed off the wreck, we rode the current north and set up for the afternoon sailfish bite.
The sailfish action was intense the entire afternoon. We had a triple come up, but one refused to eat the short, another spit the hook after a screaming run on the surface, and the other brought us to the 3 / 5 mark for the day.
We even tagged our last specimen before sending him home.
After releasing the tagged fish, we spotted about a dozen small schoolie dolphin chasing flyers about 50 yards away – so we picked up the spread and headed over to check out the action. We caught about 6 undersize dolphin which all went back into the abyss – a colorful end to a spectacular day on the water.
Capt. Charlie Ellis
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