Offshore It has been an excellent bite on Tuna and Mahi. Our charters continue to catch on excess of 20-80 fish per full day charters. We are getting some huge fish up to 54 pounds and tuna to 45 pounds. We caught one blue marlin this past week of approximately 350. -375 pounds on a marlin charter. Our fishing is taking place from 20 to 45 miles from Islamorada. Live bait fishing has been the trick on all species of fish we are catching.
The tuna are best approached by finding birds then circling the school and then find the direction of movement and live chum and drift. Trolling feathers and lures works quite well but you will not get the numbers of fish and size as with live chumming. The mahi are taking trolled lures like a Bost Mahi or Tuna Candy in red/black and green/yellow. For the really huge mahi horse ballyhoo rigged on a small Madeira marlin lure works great as the smaller fish are intimidated by the huge size. These serve well for marlin also. Reef and Inshore The yellowtail at night is hot as well as the mangrove bite in some of our snapper spots. Grouper have been caught with good success as well as a few Cubera Snapper on live lobsters or snappers. The reefs are hit hard but finding spots and rotating the days fished has allowed us to have good consistency. They key here is current and direction of current. Several kings have been caught in the teens to twenty pounds but none like the big 50-60 lb kings of the winter. Spearfishing has been great on the spearfishing charters into the patches, deeper reefs and wrecks. Tarpon are very active still in the cuts and channels with dead bait the preferred method. Bonefish and permit are on the reefs but we have not fished these flats fish as the offshore bite is exceptional. If you want a Great charter call us. We are recipient of Best of Islamorada 2014 Charter Boat and recently our captain was the featured captain in Florida Sportsman August issue 2014 Marlin article. He was featured as the leading Marlin captain in the entire state of Florida. August and September are the prime months for Mahi, Tuna and Marlin. We live up to our reputation" we put you on big fish with fly, light or conventional tackle". Call 305-304-7573 for booking a charter or Visit www.upperkeyssportfishing.com
