Wow….time flies…
Hard to believe it’s been three months since my last report…busy fishing I guess.
I’d like to report that spinner shark season was it’s usually insanity with wrecked leaders, lines, flies and anglers, but such was not the case. After their later than usual arrival,(five weeks late) the weather was impossible with hard east winds. We did end up with almost a month of fishable conditions,(instead of three months…aaaarrrrgggghhhh), and had some action that was truly epic. Some days the sharks were schooled up so thick and in such a voracious mood that chumming was unnecessary. Just get in position, throw the fly and hang on.
And for the first time that I can remember, the false albacore arrived before the sharks departed. We caught the first ten pound plus albie on March 24th, a fourteen pounder. Hence the reason for the lack of reports, out of the spinner shark frying pan, into the albie fire. As of this writing, my rough estimate on releases for false albacore tops four hundred, a great start to a record release season. Topping last years estimate of 3500 releases is likely, knock on wood.
Dolphin fishing has heated up, we have boated fish in excess of thirty pounds and lost some much larger fish. I am looking forward to having the dolphin fishing remain good for the next several months. King mackerel are also in attendence, good sized fish in the ten to thirty pound and up range, and will dump line off a fly reel very, Very fast. Some magnum sized blackfin tuna have put in an appearance, but so far, none have stayed long enough to visit the icebox.
Throw in a scattering of skipjack tuna, cobia, wahoo and sailfish,(one customer this week had a chance at a sailfish in fifteen feet of water close to the beach, something that will send the heart rate into triple digit timing unless you’re dead) and our “target rich environment” is complete. The only missing players are the big tarpon that should start moving through the area in early June and remain into mid July. This is shaping up to be a very entertaining spring and summer.