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The week between Christmas and New Year

is usually the busiest time of year in Key West. That goes for the Charter Boat Too. The weather just before Christmas was horrible, but fortunately, it has been beautiful since Christmas for the most part. Hopefully, this is a good kickoff for another good season. We had 2 half-day trips today.

Our morning trip was a family group and they were mainly interested in action for their boys. We went to the reef and caught some live bait, Ballyhoo, and used them to slow troll around the reef again. It has been working well and the people have been having a lot of fun doing it, so once again “if it ain’t broke – don’t fix it”.

Barracuda Caught and released in Key West fishng on charter boat Southbound

The bait was relatively easy. I think I only threw the cast net 2 times and we had enough to fish with. It didn’t take long before we started catching some nice Cero mackerels again. We also caught a couple of nice Mutton Snapper. Mutton Snapper are a shallow water “cousin” of the Red Snapper. Very similar in shape, but they are found anywhere from the flats to 300 ft deep. They are delicious! Mutton Snapper is my personal favorite fish to eat. We also caught and released a nice sized Barracuda

 

In the afternoon, we had a split charter.

A couple from Iowa and my neighbor and her grandson. Because we already had bait and I had not heard anything going on that would make me want to change our game plan, so we went back to the reef for more action. It was still good. We had steady bites with fish up to about 12lbs. A few were lost, but that happens. We didn’t catch anymore Mutton Snappers in the afternoon, but we did catch one decent Kingfish about 15lbs. It was the biggest fish of the day

Cero Mackerel caught in Key West fishing on Charter boat Southbound