Tarpon in assorted sizes have been in the area in fairly large numbers. We haven’t been getting much cooperation out of the larger fish that are in good sized groups out along the beach, have only gotten a handful of strikes and put a couple in the air, but that’s tarpon fishing. But anytime you have a six foot long fish in your sights, the adrenaline gets pumping pretty good. The little guys inside the ICW have been consistently eating though for anyone who really wants to get one. Been able to get some snook chummed up, but like everything else, they’re really not chewing well yet. A few king mackerel are being caught, and there are some truly huge jack crevalle cruising the bait schools out along the beach. The only really hot action recently has been provided by the false albacore. This past Sunday they put on a spectacular show, there were albies crashing the surface as far as the eye could see. It looked like a hail storm with ten pound hail stones hitting the surface! Flying fish running for their lives, big head wakes right under them. And when the flyer touched down, boom! I had a couple of really die hard anglers out, Andy and Carlos from Pittsburgh, Pa. for four days. And after some less than cooperative weather and lackluster fishing, these guys really made up for it on Sunday. We fished until the t-storms really got going late in the afternoon. I think they boated better than forty albies between the two of them, with nothing under ten pounds and the big fish of the day being a massive seventeen pounder. That’s only a pound off the world record. Yesterday, the albies weren’t quite as wild, but it was still fish at will. And we boated an even larger albie which I didn’t weight. I was getting worried that the albies weren’t going to put in an appearance like normal this year. They are only about a month late showing up in numbers. Hopefully this means they’ll be a month late leaving.

We’re still getting less than desirable weather, some days I get off the boat, I just want to go find a weatherman and kick his…. “Weather forecasting” is getting to be as big an oxymoron as “jumbo shrimp”… But we’ve been doing OK, some big dolphin, some very nice albies, a good number of shots at very large tarpon, some very big snook. Have done a few night trips, saw literally a hundred snook each night. Did not get much cooperation at that time, there was very little current and they were not on the feed. The large snook have congregated at area inlets very well, and we boated several nice ones last week. There are more jumbo sized tarpon in the area than I can remember seeing in years. Offshore has been a little lack luster, big dolphin have been the mainstay, kings and albies there also, but not quite in numbers we should have…yet. Had a truly epic battle with a fifteen lb dolphin last Friday. Customer Tim Larkin hooked it up on an eight weight and had quite a fight on his hands for almost an hour. I’ve rarely seen a dolphin more hell bent on getting away. This one did some nice jumps and couple of short little runs and then sounded and spiraled eighty feet down. Tim stuck with him and eventually got him to the boat. We also had a huge surprise last Thursday with Hunter Johnson, he caught a five pound dolphin. That wasn’t the surprise, where he caught it was. Right at the mouth of Palm Beach Inlet!! Swimming right along with the snook and tarpon. I saw several there, so I don’t think they were lost.There is still a few blackfin and skipjack tuna around…one evening, I lost a skippie probably the largest I’ve ever had hooked. Over twenty pounds, I f! ought him about twenty minutes, and lost him to something with teeth. Not sure what ate him, the next one I hooked got chopped in half next to the boat by a monster wahoo. The remains weighed about ten lbs. I’m still seeing sailfish almost everyday, but still haven’t made the time to drag teasers for them. That’s it in a nutshell.