Fishing in South Florida is full of surprises because you never really know what you will catch. The availability of a particular species is often dictated by season, sea conditions and weather patterns. During the winter the emphasis is on the high flying, tail walking sailfish, kingfish and tarpon. A typical spread involves the use of a kite as well as several flat lines and even a rod fished on the bottom. Most of the time, we will be drifting with the aid of the wind and current. While waiting for Mr. Sail we often catch kingfish, dolphin, tuna, and wahoo. Tarpon are a fantastic target because the pull hard and spend much of their time in the air. One of the best things about tarpon fishing is that you don't have to run very far or get up early. Most fish are caught just a few hundred yards from world famous South Beach. Just imagine catching one of these prehistoric beasts while admiring the Miami Beach skyline. After our winter and spring fishing season it's time for dolphin and snapper. Dolphin can be caught trolling or running and gunning which involves looking for diving birds or other signs of feeding fish. Snapper can be caught by anchoring and chumming or buy deep dropping in 200-400 normally using an electric reel.

December was a crazy month with periods of very high winds making fishing offshore nearly impossible. For those willing to brave the high winds and seas the fishing was good to excellent. On most of our trips this month we have been targeting sailfish, dolphin, and an occasional bottom fish. The first part of the month saw very good numbers of mahi moving through the area and it seemed everyone was catching enough of these fish to keep the rods bent.

Over the last week the fishing did slow quite a bit but with a little hard work we've been catching enough fish to keep things interesting. Joel and Nate were interested in getting Nate his first sail and that they did along with mahi and bonito.

Robert and his young son Daniel were out for a short late afternoon of fun fishing. We hoped to catch a few snapper for dinner but the jacks were relentless eating every bait we put out. We moved to deeper water and pulled hooks on a couple of decent fish. We decided to head in as the sun was setting and enjoyed a beautiful ride back to the dock.

Eric and his friend Jeff fished two days and were looking to catch mahi and sailfish. Both anglers catch their fair share of kings and grouper on the west coast but seldom see a sail. On day 1 we had "sporty" conditions and slow fishing but we still managed to catch some mahi including a nice fish in the mid twenty's. Unfortunately, the sailfish bite on this day was nearly non-existent. The next day we woke up to high winds and colder temperatures. We decided to give it a shot and were eventually rewarded. Fishing started very slow with a couple of kingfish and not much else. I told Jeff that the conditions seemed to indicate that we would have an afternoon bite and within a short time we had the first sailfish bite. Shortly after that we had a shot at a double and managed to get one of the two fish. Jeff was extremely happy to scratch sailfish off his fishing "bucket list". To make a long story short we ended the day going 1 for 3 on sails, 3 kings, bonitos, and very nice wahoo to cap things off. The boys were very happy as they headed back to Tampa.

On my last trip I fished with Pierre, his brother, and their girlfriends. Pierre wanted to catch big and the bite wasn't exactly on fire. We endured some real slow fishing early in the day but got things rolling with a nice XL mangrove snapper on the bottom rod. We followed with a healthy Mutton snapper and then a cero mackerel. Everyone one the boat had caught fish except Pierre and reports on the VHF radio were grim. I really wanted to get Pierre on a nice fish so I kept chumming with pilchards and looking around. After a short move and some more chumming we saw a sail swim right by the boat and ignore our baits. I knew that these fish often travel in pods so we kept at it. Within minutes we came tight on a leaping sail. Pierre and his friends were ecstatic and filming the action on their GoPro cameras. Unfortunately, the fish landed on the leader after one of many leaps and it parted. Pierre was devastated but says he will be back soon to accomplish his mission. He did catch a hefty bonito before we had to pull our lines and head in.

Well there you have it, the fishing has been up and down but with some persistence there are fish to be caught. Later this week we are expecting a cold front to move in which should push more sailfish down our way. In the meantime there are still dolphin, kingfish and muttons around. Tarpon fishing should also continue to improve as temperatures continue to dip.

If you're thinking about fishing in the next month or two, now is the time to book your Miami Fishing Charter. I had several calls this week from folks that waited too long and were left high and dry.