We only had a half day trip today. That is 4 hrs from the dock to dock. My customers were more serious fishermen, but because of budget and time constraints, they only booked a half day. Normally, I would suggest a longer trip for more serious fishermen. They understood 4 hrs is not a lot of time for dolphin fishing this time of year, so with that in mind, we went offshore and started fishing along the color change.
The color change is where the green water from inshore and the gulf meets the blue offshore Gulfstream water. The edge where they meet can be a pronounced defference from one side to the other. The green water is calm because there is little or no current. The blue water had much bigger waves because it has a strong east current and the wind has been out of the east. This makes the wind and current oppose each other and makes the waves bigger. It can be a great place to find fish as they work along the edge.
Today we got a few small ‘throwback” dolphin fishing along the color change, and we got a couple of quality fish. One was a “gaffer” about 12lbs or so. The other was a big cow that was 24lbs. Not a lot of bites or a lot of fish, but they were the fish we were looking for. If you are targeting a specific fish or species, sometimes you don’t get a lot of action, but if that’s what the people want we do it. These two fish provided more than enough fish for both guys and their wives to have more than one dinner.
Everybody caught a fish and we had enough for a couple of great dinners. This time of year, that is a successful day