The winter season is flying by and I have learned several things in the past couple of months. First, I still hate the cold. I learned to hate it while living in Maine twenty five years ago and my abhorrence of it has not abated in the least. Several mornings in January there were icicles hanging off my boat until noon. Thats cold for here in Palm Beach. I mean seriously…icicles??? I prefer sweating over shivering any day. And we’ve been consistently cold throughout the season, with temps in the low forties just a few days ago. Second thing I learned is that even though my clients had just come from northern states with far colder temperatures than we had,( though not by much ) getting salt water spray on you at forty five degrees pretty much levels the field and Everyone thought it was cold, uncomfortable and pretty horrid.
The only saving grace was what the horrid, cold weather did to the fishing. The non-stop action on every one of our typical winter targets has been so fast and furious that my research into becoming a Costa Rican resident is on hold, although if we see temperatures like this again, my research may resume. That and the constant fly tying to replace wrecked flies is what I’m blaming my lack of reports on anyhow…
Our winter visitors,( the fish, not the snowbirds ) arrive in December and generally begin to leave around early April, so this action continues as of this writing and I hope to see another month of it. I’m sure it is too much to hope for the Spinner Sharks to leave around the 25th of April as they did last year, ten days later than ever before.
The Jack Crevalle number in the thousands, the Spanish Mackerel number in the millions,( I kid you not, one school of Spanish mackerel was over five miles long), Pompano fishing this winter is as good as it gets, and though it all, the Spinner Sharks have been there day in and day out. Bluefish, Ladyfish, Barracuda, and some of the very best Cobia fishing ever. So many fish, so little time.
We haven’t had much in the way of calmish weather for offshore forays, but the few I’ve managed in the past several weeks have produced Skipjack Tuna every time. I heard today of some nice dolphin being caught, and yesterday we managed a false albacore of about ten pounds. Both of those fish herald a early spring season on both of those species. I’m also going to take it as a sign that warmer weather is on the way. Which is really good because my wife wouldn’t have moved to Costa Rica anyhow.