Yesterday was a very tough day.
I covered a lot of ground but quite frankly we did not catch much. There have been some Black Fin Tuna biting near sunset lately, So today, we decided to push our departure back to 1 pm and do a sunset Tuna fishing trip. It was a 6 hr trip, so that meant we would get back at the dock around 7 pm. If nothing else, we would get to see the sunset on the water
I had a group of 5 ladies from Washington St.
Ane they were a Blast!. They had all fished before and, although I was initially concerned about the sea conditions, I quickly realized they could handle whatever waves we encountered. In truth, it was much nice than I thought it would be. Seas were only 1-3 ft. I was expecting more, but it would not have mattered as these ladies were experienced fisherwomen and would have been fine if the waves were bigger.
This time of year,
The Tunas tend to stay around the wrecks. There is a lot of bait there for them to feed on. I started near a wreck up to the east of Key West and we were hooked up in the first few minutes. We ended up catching 2 Black Fins and 2 Skip Jack Tunas and lost another small Black Fin near the boat. It was a good start.
My 1st mate
Spotted some Frigate birds hovering low a little east of where we were. When the Frigate birds get low on the water, it usually means there are fish there. Sure enough, we cruised under the birds and hooked 3 more Black Fin tunas. I worked the area for a while, but we didn’t get any more bites, so we headed east to another wreck. It was about 4 miles east and I hoped we would get some bites along the way. Unfortunately, we did not and unfortunately, there were no tunas biting on the wreck when I got there.
I headed back to the west
and back to the wreck, we got our first bites on. We hooked up again with a Black Fin. Time was getting short and the sun was getting low. I worked my back toward Key West hoping to have enough time to fish two more wrecks between our location and Key West. The first was the Vandenberg. It’s a well know wreck sunk intentionally about 10 yrs ago. We did not get any tuna there, but we did catch a nice Barracuda for a little variety.
The last “wreck” I wanted to fish
was actually a debris field made up of construction materials that came from some demolished buildings years ago. It is a bit spread out, but it generally holds fish. We picked up a couple more Black Fin and a Bonito to finish the day
Tuna At Sunset
We headed home from our Sunset Tuna fishing trip just as the sun was hitting the water. A much better day than yesterday
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/257586/ahi-poke-bowl-with-rice-crackers