Sunset Tuna Bite
Sunset TunaBiteThis time of year the Black Fin Tuna are usually around our Key West Waters. They are not a large tuna such as the Blue Fin or Yellow Fin Tuna. These days, the average Black Fin Tuna is 10-15 lbs. Anything over 20 lbs is considered big. They can get over 30lbs but it is very rare. In 30 years of fishing the waters of Key West and the Florida Keys, I’ve only caught 4 Black Fin Tuna that were 30 lbs or better. (2 right at 30lbs, 1 at 32.5lbs and one that was 36lbs). The World Record Black Fin was caught off Miami this past year. It was 50.1 lbs. What a monster that one must have been.
Pound for Pound
A Black Fin or any Tuna for that matter, puts up a great fight! I can’t count how many times an angler stared in Disbelief at the tuna they had just caught because they were expecting something much bigger to come over the rail. “That is the fish that Kicked my but??” has been heard more than once on the deck of the Southbound.
It is not uncommon for the Black Fin to feed at Sunset
I’m not sure why, but they do. You can mark schools of them all day long and rarely get a bite. But just before the sun goes down, the fish will come up and actively feed. Whatever the reason, sometimes we adjust our departure time and leave later so we are still on the water at Sunset. The last half hour can be crazy as every bait that hits the water gets hit. It doesn’t happen every night so, like all fishing there is an element of a “Crapshoot” involved, but it has been happening lately so we left at 12:30 today for a 6 hr trip.
We fished the reef first
To get some action and put some fish in the boat. We anchored and caught some live bait. The action was good and we put some delicious Cero Mackerel, Yellowtail Snapper, and a big Margate in the boat. We released a couple of big Barracudas also. Around 4 pm, we picked up and headed offshore to put ourselves in position for the Black Fin Tuna.
We caught a couple right away
just a few minutes after we got all the baits out. It’s always nice to catch the “target species” right away. we only had a couple of hours to troll and while the bites were not crazy, we did manage to catch 5 Blackf Fn Tuna and a Bonito. We lost 3 or 4 others, but that will happen. Nobody gets them all. None of the Black Fin were on the large size. We call These “Footballs” because they are approximately the same size and shape……….Just much better tasting !!
As the sun was getting low
We headed for Key West. We had a good catch of fish and we got to enjoy a beautiful Sunset as we turned into the harbor. It was another good day on the Southbound!
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