Yes, it has been quite a while since the last report. Weather has been perfect fishing weather, bait has been in good supply and the species list has been nice. False albacore have been the mainstay and continue to be at numbers that that force you to admit that enough is enough and go off in search of other species. And since the middle of July, some world record class fish have been in good supply, with albies in the fifteen pound and up range a daily occurrence. One of my clients had several in the sixteen to seventeen pound range and two eighteen pounders on the same day. I think the Motrin flowed heavily that night.
Dolphin fishing is also very consistent, though the distance one must travel to find them changes daily. In early July eight to ten miles was a good distance to run to find them,with quite a few showing up while chumming the albies just a mile or two off the beach. But lately, most of the better action requires a twelve to fifteen mile jaunt. And that’s ok because the new boat makes that kind of a run in no time at all and generally we have no interference from other boats out that distance. The same area has produced some nice tripletail hanging on decent debris. I keep hearing about roving schools of skipjack tuna, though I have yet to see them. Not to worry, the fall usually has plenty of encounters with those purple speedsters.
King mackerel have been around in fishable numbers and in the perfect size range for fly. Those eight to fifteen pound kings just love to eat flies. And a few in the twenty-pound range have cooperated lately also.
In the past couple of weeks, the snook have started cooperating very well and some dandy fish have come over the side.
Some odds and ends of barracuda, big jacks, rainbow and blue runners round out the action we have been seeing.
I’ll be adding a bunch of new pictures to the gallery, I have a new camera that takes great pictures. Check it out.

The fishing has continued to be exceptional, even if the weather has been less so. Normally, our winter winds have died down for the most part by early May. But here it is the fourth week of the month and the wind is making the ocean pretty uncomfortable. Oh, well. Not to worry. Jacks, snook and barracuda have been cooperating well in the calm waters of the ICW, and the tarpon are warming up nicely.The bait schools are getting thicker on the inside and that will help getting things even more reved up.
In between the wind blowing, offshore has been great. The albies keep getting more in numbers and size. Hordes of medium sized fish in the three to eight pound range are to be had at will. And in the last week, their big brother have arrived in force. Fish in the ten pound and up range have started making more regular appearances. And black fin tuna are mixing in. They run in the twenty to thirty five pound range, and though it takes some real skill with a heavy dose of luck to pick a blackfin out of a mass of rampaging albies, getting them past the bull sharks takes even more.
Dolphin, as everyone who knows me is aware, are my favorite fish to play with and what a show they have been putting on. We may end up catching more dolphin and more big dolphin than even last fall which was world class. Large numbers of smaller schoolie sized dolphin and plenty of quality fifteen to “Oh, my god” sized dolphin have been in the area. There have been alot of dolphin in the fifty pound range caught, and at least one seventy pound fish caught off our coast this spring. And I heard rumor of a 93 pounder caught right over in the Bahamas a week or so ago. I think I would have a heart attack if one like that swam up to the boat!
This spring will go down as the best cobia run I can remember. For several months now, large numbers of cobia have been, and continue to be, in the area. Thats one of the things that has been making chumming the albies so crazy. The typical scenario is I get the boat on the reef edge and start marking albie schools on the depth finder. Start the chumming and up come the albies with the following groups of blue runners, rainbow runners and other assorted critters. You know the bull sharks are getting close when the remoras show up, little frickin vacuum cleaners that they are, eat everything in sight. And up come the packs of three to eight monster bull sharks, all of them between eight and ten foot plus. Which though a little tough to get the albies through, the accompanying cobia come to investigate what the activity at the boat is all about and there is a mad dash to get a fly in front of one.
Loads of fun.
All that has kept me so busy, I haven’t even had time to go try the king mackerel out that have been chewing up a storm. I’ll get around to them shortly at the very least to keep things varied. I’m hoping the winds lay down by Memorial Day, because that is the time I generally start looking for the tarpon, (the big migratory adults, not our resident juveniles) to start moving through the area. After the stellar action we had on the big guys last fall, I’m actually looking forward to sending some silver slobs skyward.
So, that’s pretty much what has been keeping me occupied. For what it is worth, I still have plenty of open days between now and the end of August when this melee’ usually slows down, though the albie/dolphin/king mackerel fishing action continued last year right through September. Here’s hoping that repeats. That will take us right to the start of the bait migration and all the craziness that involves.

While fishing has been entertaining enough, this winters weather has been a real hindrance. Lots of wind, something that doesn’t normally bother me or the fish, but from directions and at speeds that made fishing extremely difficult. We had three weeks right in the middle of spinner shark season that the winds were screaming and the ocean was just plain ugly. And not only did the sharks show up late, the exit date for them turned out to be April 1st. So the shortest season I can remember for them with the worst weather I can remember. And the sailfish action never really amounted to much, at least not enough numbers or action that would have made trying for them on fly worthwhile.
The other stuff was fairly routine, inshore ladyfish, jacks, snook and barracuda and when the weather cooperated well enough to get out on the ocean, the spanish mackerel, bluefish and king mackerel were very consistent. Some of the encounters with monster jack crevalle were very entertaining. And I had several days on skipjack tuna in a size range approaching the biggest I’ve ever seen. Lots of wahoo reports from the trollers
Now most of that is over or very shortly to end and it’ll be on to the spring and summer menu. The dolphin fishing was surprisingly consistent through the winter, and even a few false albacore remained in the area. I’m also hearing rumors of schools of king mackerel heading this direction. I’m going to take that as a sign that, like last year, the spring action will begin by the middle or end of April if not sooner.

Can’t really say we’ve been rocking the world here. Consistent jacks, spanish and king mackerel, ladyfish and barracuda, but the sailfish action has been less than stellar. I had hoped for a repeat of the past several years of sailfish action, but it has not happened as of yet. Though as writing this, the temperature outside is about 42 degrees with the wind chill and that holds promise of getting the spindlebeaks going. Up until now, our weather and water temps have been very high, running about seven degrees above normal. While that has held some of the winter species at bay, we actually have had decent fishing for tarpon, dolphin and even some false albacore have remained in the area,(though after almost five thousand releases on the albies last season, I really don’t need to see another one of those till next May). And I guess the spinner sharks were not in a hurry to get here either. I normally see the first groups of spinners right around Xmas, and here it is late January and they are just now starting to show up. Maybe that will mean they will have a late departure. One can only hope, I never get tired of the spinners.
I’ll try to get a few more reports up in the next couple of weeks to make up for the hiatus I’ve been on.

Well, I guess it’s time for a report of what has been going on. We had a great fall bait migration/mullet run. Tarpon fishing was good, and there was some exceptional dolphin fishing for this time of year. But here it is the end of November and the winter visitors are showing up in impressive numbers already. Spanish mackerel, bluefish, jacks galore, ladyfish and pompano are all “in” and chewing. The jack schools are truly huge, numbering in the thousands, and of all sizes from scrappy five to ten pounders up to “break out the big stick” thirty pounders and beyond.
The sailfish are starting to show, not in huge numbers yet, but enough to get out and try for them. We’ve had two shots at teased up fish, that for technical problems beyond our control, didn’t happen. But I’ve made a vow to get at least ten sails on fly in the next month and a half, so this won’t be the last time you’ll be hearing about sailfish. Considering that every winter during the December through January time frame, there is a week or two of sailfish action that rivals anything anywhere in the world. Being in on one of those bites could very well account for ten sails on fly in a single day. I’m rigged, ready and hoping to see something like that.
There has been a decent amount of dolphin being caught and some king mackerel also in the area. And that will be the “menu” for the foreseeable future. The only player still not in the game are the spinner sharks and they should be along shortly.

Here it is the middle of September already. The summer went flying by once again with a steady stream of false albacore, king mackerel, spanish mackerel and a decent amount of dolphin. The action on the reef edge was spectacular with albies, rainbow and blue runners chewing up a storm. June was once again “shark month” with huge bull sharks peeling off our albies at every opportunity. While each daily customer got a big kick out of that, it was getting pretty old for me, especially with each fish eaten went the fly, translating into even more fly tying than what I was already doing. To take my frustration out at this, I would take one of the mangled albies, (most were eaten whole, but a few decapitated carcasses made it back to the boat), and hang it by a rope off the side of the boat. When a bull shark went after it, I would “tease” it up to the side of the boat. Some of these guys were so aggressive, they would latch a hold on the albie and refuse to let go. I could pull their entire head and shoulders up out of the water, jaws snapping, tail throwing water over the entire boat. If I had time, I would grab the gaff that was laying within reach and bring the handle down on the things head with as much force as I could muster. Put a pretty decent bend in the gaff handle and didn’t phase the shark in the least. Fruitless I know, but satisfying nonetheless.The numbers of albies coming over the side really hit a peak from about the middle of June through the end of August. You could go out and just throw a fly around with no chum and easily catch a dozen fish in a couple hours. With two or three anglers onboard and a load of chum, fifty fish days were pretty common. And here it is the middle of September and the albies are still here. That is officially the longest they’ve ever been here with a solid five month season!
Some of the other stuff I’ve been doing has been using fast sink lines for the king mackerel. As with the albies, large schools have been here most of the summer and they also show no signs of leaving. Fairly easy stuff, get the fly deep into the school and just twitch it along. The strike for a king moving twenty mph + when it crashes the fly is truly an impressive strike. And when he feels the hook, the turbo activates and off they go at close to fifty. A very cool thing if you like watching line melt off the reel.
And we had the ultimate in line melting one day in July when a fifty pound plus wahoo hung around the boat for fifteen minutes eating dead pilchards one at a time. I tried every trick I know to get him to eat a fly. He wouldn’t eat one with wire on it. He did clip two flies off with just a mono leader, and then he wouldn’t go near a fly, but he did keep right on eating the dead pilchards. I finally had to resort to feeding him a bait with a hook in it, something I’ve only done about five times in my career, but no one is going to quibble about how to get a fifty pound ‘hoo in the boat, right? I actually had to cut a fly apart to get a hook to put the bait on, not a single bare hook in the boat.
So, he ate the bait, I set the hook and handed the rod off to the first of my three anglers. Well, the wahoo was obviously unsure of what was going on because it did a very lazy one hundred yard run straight out in front of the boat. Now it’s rare, but some of these things don’t ever get warmed up for a real run, so thinking this was the case I started motoring after the fish. Just about then the line goes slack, and I immediately think he’s shaken the hook, but I hit reverse attempting to keep the line tight just in case he is still connected. And out of the corner of my eye I see this flash that looked exactly like a bolt of lightning underwater. I even glanced up at the sky looking for the thunderhead from where a bolt may have been reflected in the water. It actually was wahoo coming back past the boat at a speed I can’t even begin to guess at. They say these things top out at over sixty mph in the water, and I believe this one was traveling every bit of that. It came from a hundred yards in front of the boat and finished its run over three hundred yards in the other direction. And it took about twenty seconds to do it. All three of my clients took turns on the fish trying to get it close, but it was not meant to be, the hook pulling free at the end of thirty minutes.
So, here it is, the middle of September and the fall bait migration is in full swing. Mullet, sardines, menhaden and pilchards all moving south and every conceivable predator blasting away at them. Snook, tarpon, jacks, mackerel, bluefish,ladyfish, sharks….everyone getting in on the last big feed of the summer. The dolphin fishing has picked up considerably in the last week, and even some small blackfin tuna are showing up, which usually heralds skipjack tuna moving through the area. So basically, seeing over fifteen species on any given day right now is pretty typical.
It makes me semi crazy that this time of year has spectacular fishing, but business is pretty quiet. All this fishing to be done and I’m out by myself doing it. Everyone is probably getting kids back in school and getting ready for the upcoming holidays. I’ll try to keep the reports and stories coming for those of you forced to live vicariously…but I can’t promise that I don’t  get so distracted by the fishing that you don’t hear from me again till the spinner sharks show up in January..

Busy, busy, busy. Summer fishing in high gear. Albies, snook, tarpon, dolphin, tuna and too many bull sharks chasing,(and catching) hooked fish. Things were darn near spectacular since the middle of April, and with very little in the way of interference from poor weather thankfully. Too busy to keep track of the numbers of fish caught, flies tied, etc. I’d hazard a guess we crossed the 1K number of albies landed about the end of May, which is pretty wild since that’s just about the time the albies normally arrive!
A wrench has been thrown into everything this week however, we have a cold water up welling in progress. A normal occurrence during the summer here, strong currents flowing up against the shelf push deep water up to the surface and then in along the beaches and reefs. Divers have been reporting water temps of almost twenty degrees departure from normal on the bottom, and surface temps are cold also. But these things happen fast, and usually go away fast, so it should be short lived….hopefully.
One of the more entertaining things in the past month was a quick over and back one day trip to the western Bahamas with some buddies on their new 25 foot Bluewater. We went in search of skipjack and yellowfin tuna, which we never found in over a hundred and forty miles of searching. We did get a couple of dolphin and a tripletail or two off of floating debris, but not the stuff we were looking for. So when we found an eleven foot, six hundred pound tiger shark cruising on the surface, of course we couldn’t just leave it alone. Sacrificing one of the caught dolphin to the idea, we slashed the dolphin and hung it over the side ala spinner shark technique, and dragged it a short distance to create a scent trail. The tiger hit that trail and came right to the boat. But we just couldn’t get the thing fired up enough to hit the shark fly I kept presenting to it on my fifteen weight. Even after letting it bite the dolphin in half, it just wouldn’t play. So after it slapped the side of the boat with it’s tail and took a couple of exploratory bites at the propeller , I decided to cheat a bit and teach the thing boats weren’t such a good thing to hand around. I brought the fly up to a couple inches of the rod tip, and next time he came close, I reached out and stuck the fly in his nose. And that was the last time we saw it. It headed for the bottom at warp two like a broken elevator cable in four thousand feet of water. And I’m not stupid, or young anymore, so while still on the flyline I popped him off. Even with a fifteen weight, I’m sure Mr. Tiger would have kicked my butt all over the ocean for the rest of the week. A guy has to know his limitations…

Yes, it was. Madness that is. The sharks put up one of their best, non-stop, no days in a pissy mood shows I can remember. Consistent cooperation for almost ten weeks. Action fast enough for me to have no hope of keeping up with numbers. I’d hazard a guess we released about three hundred. and went through about four hundred flies, two hundred yards of leader material and several hundred feet of wire leaders. I must be doing something right because my guys only broke one rod,(not counting the one I blew up earlier in the season, log entry 1/13/06) and that story is worth telling.
A customer who had just a week earlier had been out for the sharks was out with me for a second go around. First shark of the day flies up to the boat, pounces on the fly and goes off on it’s initial run. I say to the gentleman,(we’ll call him Frank), “OK, jab him a couple times to set the hook” and Frank loses his mind and rears back on the rod like he’s winding up to hit a ball over Yankee stadiums center field wall. Not a nice thing to do to a rod. It breaks with a  sound like a pistol shot inside the fighting grip of his twelve weight, and there goes the entire top section of the rod over the side and down the line. When this all started I had just finished stringing up my fifteen weight, so while I drive the boat following the line waiting for the water pressure to push the broken rod back up where we can grab it, I pull all the line on the fifteen up and out the rod tip until I have about ten feet of backing out. Just about the time Frank is able to save the broken rod, I cut the fly line off the fifteen and switch places with Frank, having him drive. And just through the luck of creating enough slack to the shark so it doesn’t feel any pressure and go off on another run, I cut the line going to what is left of Franks rod, and retie his backing to the backing on the fifteen weight. And we finish the fight and land the shark. I had done the retie thing on big jacks and albies, never before with a shark. It was a pretty wild couple of minutes.
Anyhow, the sharks all left the premises on April 8 this year, sad to see them go, see-you all in nine months. And on April 13, we caught our first albie of the 2006 season. So, out of the frying pan, into the fire. As of this writing, we’ve already landed about seventy five albies, in ten days, fairly slow for albie fishing by our standards, but since they don’t usually even show up for another month, this is looking like another banner year to come on them. Dolphin fishing has been good, monster jacks and big king mackerel are rounding out the show.
Man, I love fishing Palm Beach.

Well, here we go. Ten weeks of madness. Ten weeks of bleeding knuckles, busted lines, broken rods, and tying flies just as fast as my little fingers can go. Ten weeks of brown missiles flying up to the boat so fast as to make you want to back up. Pouncing on flies, jumping, spinning and a whole lot of running. Ten weeks of wrapping medical tape around fingers, directing anglers like a square dance caller, wrestling with leaders attached to big, toothy critters. Easily some of the toughest, most exciting action fly fishing has to offer anywhere in the world.
Let the games begin.
Besides the flood of spinner sharks that have just arrived in the area, the spanish mackerel, king mackerel, bluefish, jacks, pompano, ladyfish and barracuda,(our normal winter menu) is still going strong, and though the incredible sailfish bite that happened in January has tapered off, the dolphin fishing has picked up considerably with quite a good bit of action on cobia thrown in for good measure.
And besides some up and down swings in mood caused by passing weather, I expect this action to go through into early to mid April. And I still have plenty of open dates for those interested in an ass-whooping.

The baitfish massacre of last month has ended, as it was bound to do. It was spectacular while it lasted, I’d love to see that become a regular event of the November and December time frame, I could call it the “winter warm up”. But we’ve moved on now to more typical and also very entertaining fishing for January. Bluefish, Spanish mackerel, (some of the Spanish have been huge, seven or eight pounds and fight more like kingfish), king mackerel pompano, barracuda, ladyfish and the first encounters with spinner sharks. There are also some spots literally choked with nice jacks in the ten to twenty pound range. One spot especially has been very cool. The jacks are in a massive school on the bottom in about forty feet of clear water. Using a ten or twelve-weight rod, you drop a large surface popper out on a long cast over the school. The first loud “Chug” of the popper causes the water to turn white as the entire school comes up off the bottom to investigate. At the second “chug” a dozen jacks all pile on the popper. Loads of fun.
There has been another spot where just about all of the above-mentioned species are all in attendance in five to twenty feet of water in close along the beach. Several times we’ve managed four different species on four consecutive casts.
 I managed to explode a twelve weight in this spot a few days ago. The spinner sharks were there, but with so much food in the area, they wouldn’t come up a scent trail to throw a fly at. But if I threw around a teaser plug for the bluefish, a dozen bluefish would pile on the plug and this would get the attention of the spinners. The shark would come up behind the pack of bluefish, the bluefish would peel off and the shark would continue after the teaser plug, giving about a three second window where one might get a fly where it needed to be. Well, it was a little beyond what my guy could muster, understandably so, since he had just had his first casting lesson and had never even seen a twelve weight fly rod, so he was doing teaser duty and I was attempting to pick off the shark on the way in. Just as I let go on a long cast, the shark changed direction. The fly landed in the water, I took up the slack and heaved back to pick up the fly and re-direct the cast and just as I reached the apex of the pick-up, a ten pound jack hit the shark fly going the other direction. And Ka Pow!!!!! I’ve heard a lot of rods break, and this one let go with a sound like a 22 cal. pistol shot. Four extra pieces of the rod lying on the deck. Totally my fault, I’m sure no rod on the market would have survived this experience. And to add insult to injury, the jack is still hooked up, and in the process of hand lining him to the boat, the shark comes back and eats him. Now I’m hand lining, bare handed I might add, a spinner shark. Obviously, and thankfully, this doesn’t last long, which is good that I manage to break him off because what was left of the shattered rod, including the reel, were in very real danger of going over the side in a hurry. From rod breaking to the aftermath of the shark-tug-o-war all happened in about twenty seconds, at the end of which my customer looks at me and asks if that was what was supposed to happen. I almost fell over laughing.