Author: Steve Waters

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Fish for amberjacks around artificial reefs

Amberjacks don’t get much respect from South Florida anglers, but they should.

They’ll bite throughout the spring when other species won’t. Getting amberjacks to the boat is challenging because they fight like mixed martial arts heavyweights.

AJs, as they’re known, gather around local artificial reefs to spawn from March through early June. That makes them easy to target, but it also makes them difficult to land because they’ll head straight for the wreck when they’re hooked. If they make it, that’s pretty much the end of the fight, because it’s next to impossible to pull them out, and usually the fishing line ends up breaking on the wreck.

Local amberjacks range from 20 to 50 pounds, but they can be bigger, like 60 or 70 pounds. To give their anglers a fighting chance, most charter captains use 50 pound outfits spooled with monofilament or braided line. Leaders range from 80 to 130 pound monofilament and are tied to a big circle hook.

Those captains use a variety of live baits, with goggle eyes, small blue runners, and small bonitos-their favorites. AJs also willbite ballyhoo, mullet,  speedos, pinfish, and grunts.

The basic rig has a three-way swivel tied to the main line with a 10-foot or longer leader tied to the swivel along with a sinker on a short piece of monofilament. Sinker weights can range from 8 to 16 ounces depending on the strength of the current.

Hooks used with bait for amberjacks cannot be made of stainless steel in state waters off South Florida and anglers must have a de-hooking device aboard their boats to aid in the release of fish. As soon as you hook an amberjack, you need to reel as fast as possible to get the fish away from a wreck, although a big AJ can pull enough drag to get back to its hangout. A good boat driver can help by pulling away from the wreck after the fish is hooked.

Even then, the fight is far from over, because the fish will circle and dig all the way to the surface, then take out line just when you thought it was about to give up.

Another way to catch amberjacks is by jigging for them. Butterfly or flutter jigs can be dropped around a wreck and then worked almost to the surface by lifting the fishing rod up and down as you reel.

If the jig, which darts and flutters as it sinks, doesn’t get bit, let it fall back down and jig it up again. Bites can come on the fall or after the lure hits bottom and is jigged up.

Conventional or spinning outfits spooled with 50 to 65 pound braided line tied to five feet of 80 pound monofilament or fluorocarbon leader can be used to jig.

The only downsides to jigging: Even if you don’t hook an amberjack, it can be tiring after doing it several times. It can also be expensive if the AJs you hook get into the wreck and break the line. The jigs typically cost from $10 to $25, so a good day jigging wrecks for AJs can easily cost you $100 in lures.

Among the pluses: You don’t have to mess with live bait and the jigs also catch cobia and grouper, as well as almaco jacks, kingfish, and blackfin tunas.

Figuring out where to drop your jigs or baits is easy. Just visit any of the area’s artificial reefs in 150-300 feet (you can find their coordinates at myfwc.com/conservation/saltwater/artificial-reefs).

Among the best wrecks for amberjacks are many of the 25 artificial reefs sunk off Pompano Beach by the Pompano Beach Fishing Rodeo, including the Corey and Chris in 244 feet, the Lowrance in 200 feet, and the Miller Lite in 155 feet.

The Rodeo reefs were so good for amberjacks that commercial anglers used to hammer them every spring. Rodeo officials repeatedly asked state and federal agencies to make the tournament’s reef area off-limits to commercial fishing. When that didn’t happen, the Rodeo refused to sink any more ships.

Deeper wrecks are often better than shallow wrecks because they don’t receive as much fishing pressure as the shallow ones. If you don’t get a bite on a wreck after a while, move to another one and keep moving until you  find the fish.

It’s best to fish the edges of a wreck rather than dropping a bait or jig in the wreck. Depending on the current, you might have to position your boat well off the wreck so by the time your bait hits bottom, it’ll be adjacent to the wreck.

In the Atlantic, the amberjack daily bag limit is one per person, the size limit is 28 inches from the tip of the mouth to the fork of the tail and the season is open year-round. The Gulf of Mexico bag limit is also one per person, the size limit is 34 inches fork length and the season is open May 1-31 and Aug. 1-Oct. 31.

A fried amberjack sandwich is popular fare in restaurants in Florida’s Panhandle, and smoked amberjack is quite tasty, but most local anglers release the fish because their flesh tends to have worms. The worms are not harmful, but they can make you think twice about eating an amberjack as you pull them out of a fillet.

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Cold fronts slow down 2 largemouth bass

The cold fronts that sweep through South Florida in February have a dramatic effect on the fishing for largemouth bass.

Like locals who stay indoors when temperatures drop to the 40s and 50s, bass slow down and move as little as possible in chilly water. That’s when Team Yo-Zuri bass pro Mike Surman of Boca Raton said anglers have two choices.

“One is to flip heavy cover,” Surman said. “Two is to try to get
some type of reaction bite.

“That’s essentially the only way you can catch them in Florida,
They’re so used to warm weather, they just shut down. The
water is so shallow, it can cool down 10 degrees overnight.”

Over the past 30 years, Surman has been one of the most successful tournament pros in South Florida and won countless
tournaments.

He won the very first FLW Tour tournament in 1996, which was held on Lake Okeechobee during cold front conditions.

Back then, Surman flipped heavy mats of vegetation and that is still a productive cold front tactic. He especially likes to flip in hydrilla, an exotic aquatic plant that offers bass food and shelter.

“During a cold front, the hydrilla stays warm and they feel secure,” said Surman, who flips the middle of a hydrilla mat during a cold front. “They don’t have to go anywhere if they want to eat, but they also don’t have to move. They’re not afraid of predators, they’re holed up in their home, so to speak.

“Hyacinths are my second favorite. There’s a canopy over the top and it’s open underneath. When the bass are a little more active, they can move around.”

Flipping involves dropping a soft-plastic creature bait through the vegetation and, hopefully, right in front of a fish’s mouth. Even if they’re cold and not hungry, bass can’t help but grab the lure. It’s like putting a fudge brownie in front of a person who is cold and doesn’t feel like eating. That brownie is going to disappear.

Back in the 1990s, bass anglers used 1-ounce weights to punch through thick vegetation. Now they can use 2-ounce weights.

“In the old days we didn’t even have a fishing rod that could hold a 2-ounce weight. Now the rods are so good,” Surman said. “I always try to get by with the lightest weight I can use to get through the cover.

“If it’s totally canopied and there are hyacinths on top of hydrilla, that’s when I use a 2-ounce weight.”

Surman, who flips with 65-pound Yo-Zuri braided fishing line, explained that he likes a slower fall for his lure instead of having it plummet in front of a fish.

His “all-time favorite” flipping lure is a Gambler Crawdaddy, which looks like a crawfish. In severe cold front conditions, he’ll use the smaller Gambler BB Cricket.

“Sometimes that little cricket is easier to get into that real thick cover where they are,” Surman said. “There are all kinds of little grass shrimp and crawdads in there, so downsizing is definitely a good thing to try. But if I can get them to bite the Crawdaddy, I’ll use that.”

In the Everglades, Surman said there is not a lot of vegetation to flip, so he uses a square bill crankbait, which he reels so it hits rocks, downed trees, and other structures.

“That works all over the country,” said Surman, who uses Yo-Zuri Hardcore Crank crankbaits. “It bangs into the rocks, then goes up on its side until it starts tracking again. That’s usually when you’re going to get a bite.”

He fishes the crankbait on a 12-pound Yo-Zuri fluorocarbon line to help the lure get down and uses a Witch Doctor 50G crankbait rod that he helped design. It’s half fiberglass and half graphite, so it’s lighter than the old all-fiberglass crankbait rods.

Surman added that fishing is usually much better two or three days after a cold front because the water is warming and bass start feeding.

By then, the fish have moved out of the thick stuff and Surman locates them by making long casts with a Gambler Big EZ swimbait.

Once he finds the fish, he’ll pitch a Texas-rigged Fat Ace into holes in the grass or fish a wacky rigged plastic worm in open water.

In cold front conditions and after cold fronts, the chances of catching a big bass are excellent. Bass in southern Florida spawn during the winter months, so it’s common to catch female bass filled with eggs. If you catch a big female, handle her carefully and release her quickly so she can pass on her good genetics.

Warming weather conditions after a strong cold front resulted in a record-breaking professional bass tournament catch a little more than 20 years ago. A Bassmaster tournament was being held at Lake Toho in Kissimmee, where the water temperatures had been frigid for several days.

By the time the tournament started, the water had warmed for a couple of days and the bass moved onto the spawning beds in
the shallow creeks and canals feeding into the lake.

Dean Rojas of Arizona was one of the few fishermen who saw that the bass had moved onto their beds. On the first day, he set a Bassmaster record that still stands by catching five fish weighing a total of 45 pounds, 2 ounces. His catch included fish weighing 10 pounds, 13 ounces, 10-0, 9-0, 8-2, and 7-3, and he went on to win the four-day tournament.

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Colder temperatures, blustery winds bring sailfish

The cold fronts that sweep through South Florida in January have offshore anglers looking forward to celebrating the New Year by catching sailfish.

Cooler temperatures and blustery winds send the acrobatic billfish swimming south along the Atlantic coast this time of year. On a good day, it’s not unusual for boats to catch and release 10 or more of the state of Florida’s official saltwater fish. Tournament teams have released as many as 50 sailfish on a January day.

Although the fish can be caught by drifting with live sardines or trolling dead ballyhoo, serious sailfish anglers usually fly two fishing kites, each with a variety of baits.

As they head offshore, local captains consider a number of factors to determine where to start fishing: Everything from watercolor and clarity to the presence of baitfish and birds.

Capt. Mark Lamb of West Palm Beach likes to kite-fish along with a color change, which is where the water goes from green to deep blue.

“I’m going to run out to 100, 120 feet of water and start looking for an edge,” Lamb said. “I’m going to look for a temperature change and bait, like flying fish. I’m going to set up on that edge where the bait is. Put the boat out in the blue water and put your baits out on that edge.”

Top sailfish live baits include goggle-eyes, threadfin herring, pilchards, and sardines. The fishing kites are flown behind the boat and two or three fishing lines are clipped to each kite line to get the baits away from the boat. On those January days when sailfish are plentiful and biting, it’s not unusual to be fighting three or four fish at a time.

Lamb’s crew constantly adjusts the fishing lines as the kites move up and down with the wind to keep the baits splashing on the surface. That splashing attracts sailfish as well as kingfish, dolphin, wahoo, and tuna.

If the sailfish don’t bite at first, Lamb said to stay put and keep fishing, because the sailfish will eventually show up to eat.

“When you have a nice edge and there’s some bait around, don’t move,” Lamb said. “Sometimes you’ve got to be patient and fish rather than run around. In a sailfish tournament, two or three or four fish can change everything in minutes. You’re never out of it in a sailfish tournament.”

Lamb added that it can be hard to find an edge on cold-front days when the wind is blowing hard out of the northwest. Under those conditions, Lamb will slow-troll live baits “until we find something” and will often fish around wrecks, which, like edges, attract bait.

The standard tackle for sailfish is a 20-pound conventional outfit with a 15-foot 30-pound fluorocarbon leader tied to a size 5/0 to 7/0 circle hook. Successful tournament captains such as Casey Hunt of Key West and John Dudas of Miami prepare their sailfish leaders and hooks well before they leave the dock to go fishing, and they make sure all of their tackle is in tip-top condition.

“Every single time a line goes in the water, it’s perfect,” said Hunt, who has won billfish tournaments from Florida to the Bahamas to North Carolina. “The hooks, the knots. You’ve got to spend that extra time because that extra time is going to catch you more fish.”

Consider what often happens when you don’t take that time, whether you’re fishing in a tournament or you’re out on the weekend with friends:

A sailfish grabs one of your baits, jumps and snaps the leader because it’s chafed or your knots weren’t snugged up correctly. More hungry sailfish are behind your boat, but you don’t have a hook and leader ready to go. So you have to scramble to tie a new hook to some leader material, fasten it to a line and cast out another bait, but by then the fish are gone.

Dudas, who has won countless sailfish tournaments from Palm Beach to the Florida Keys, constantly evaluates the 20 fishing kites, which are rated for different wind strengths, that he carries on his boat.

“Make sure your kite flies the same, even if you used it yesterday,” said Dudas, who labels those kites based on whether they fly better to the left or to the right. “Fly a kite while you’re catching bait to test it out.”

Dudas, whose favorite sailfish bait is a herring, bridles all his kite baits with a rubber band to a 5/0 or 6/0 circle hook. Like Hunt and Lamb, when one of his anglers gets a bite, he has his crew keep the other baits in the water in case more sailfish are around.

“Sit tight, back off the drag and let him go,” said Hunt of the first sailfish you hook. “The longer you sit, the better chance you have of getting another bite.”

“If you can get one on and leave the rest of the baits working, the odds of catching a double or triple are probably 80 percent,” said Lamb, who has the angler with the first fish move to the bow while he positions the boat so the baits remain in the strike zone.

And what better way to get 2021 off to a good start than by catching and releasing a bunch of sailfish?

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Cool Novembers bring hot fishing near shallow reefs

Cold fronts in November typically result in red-hot offshore fishing on shallow reefs off the South Florida coast.

“When you think November, the first thing you think of is patch reefs,” said Capt. Abie Raymond of Go Hard Fishing. “It’s a fun timeof year.”

Patch reefs are small mounds of coral in 12 to 30 feet of water that
are scattered from Palm Beach to Islamorada. As Raymond explained, those reefs are where ballyhoo and shrimp gather when water temperatures drop after a cold front.

Capt. Abie Raymond holding a yellowtail snapper

That sudden abundance of bait attracts a variety of species ranging from snapper to sailfish.

“When the water cools down, the patch reefs get full of ballyhoo and everything follows them in there,” said Raymond, who runs offshore and inshore charters in his 26-foot C-Hawk out of Bill Bird Marina in Miami Beach (www.gohardfishing. com). “And the shrimp start running good and push out of the inlets onto the patch reefs.

Raymond added that big mutton snapper and gag grouper feast on the ballyhoo, as do kingfish, Spanish mackerel, cero mackerel, and jacks. At the same time, yellowtail snapper, smaller muttons, and porgies eat the shrimp.

The ballyhoo also attract sailfish to the patch reefs. Raymond said he’s seen several sailfish at a time chasing ballyhoo around the shallow reefs. When that happens, he’ll rig live ballyhoo on spinning outfits to cast to the sailfish.

“You can sight-cast the sailfish because they’re jet black against the reef and the white sand,” Raymond said. “If you watch your bottom machine, you’ll see the relief immediately where it goes from sand to spiky bottom. A lot of times you’ll see sea turtles on the surface, which is a great indicator of a patch reef, or you’ll see ballyhoo. If you see a wad of them, they’re probably on top of a patch reef.”

Catching ballyhoo is fairly easy after you see the baitfish showering out of the water or swimming around patch reefs. Anglers can catch them with a cast net or a hoop net or anchor the boat, put a block of chum in the water and catch ballyhoo on a rod and reel. You can also tie off your boat to the mooring balls along shallow reefs throughout the region and chum up ballyhoo.

When the ballyhoo show up in the chum slick, you can use light spinning outfits to cast small gold hooks baited with a piece of shrimp to catch one baitfish at a time.

An even better method that Raymond learned from Capt. Ray Rosher is to tie a loop of Monel wire or monofilament to a popping cork or a kite fl oat and clip it to the bottom of a sabiki rig where the weight is normally attached. That way, the sabiki rig, which has six hooks, fl oats on the surface.

“They’ll eat the sabiki hooks or you can bait the hooks with a small piece of shrimp or even fresh ballyhoo,” said Raymond, who immediately deploys some of the live baits and also puts out a few live shrimp or fresh dead shrimp on the bottom. “Half of a fresh dead shrimp will catch all kinds of good stuff.”

He fishes the shrimp on a 10-pound spinning outfit with 20-pound braided line with three feet of 30-pound fluorocarbon leader tied to the main line with a double-uni knot.  A half-ounce egg sinker slides on the leader above a 2/0 or 3/0 circle hook, depending on the size of the shrimp.

Raymond fishes the ballyhoo on 20-pound spinning outfits. He ties a Bimini twist in the 20-pound main line and uses a no-name knot to attach the double line created by the Bimini to 15 feet of 50-pound monofilament leader. He uses an 80-pound Spro swivel to add 12 inches of No. 5 stainless wire to prevent cutoffs from mackerel. The wire is attached to a 6/0 VMC light wire circle hook.

Cap. Abie Raymond and gag grouper fish

He secures the ballyhoo to the hook with an elastic bridle band, which is available at local tackle shops. Raymond places the band over the bend of the circle hook and ties a half-hitch in it, pulling the knot tight to the hook to create a loop. Using an open-eye bridle needle, he hooks the loop on the needle and runs it through the ballyhoo’s lower jaw and then loops it over the tip of the ballyhoo’s bill.

“The hook rests on the top of his jaw, so the ballyhoo can still breathe, his mouth is open, the ballyhoo is secure and the hook is exposed completely,” Raymond said. “It sounds complicated, but it’s so easy to do it.

“If you have one ready in the livewell and you see ballyhoo spraying, fi re it out. You might catch a Spanish mackerel, a kingfish, a jack, or a sailfish. Some days it’s just bite after bite.”

Days like that make November a month to remember.

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Attention anglers: Time for the fall mullet run

You know autumn has arrived in New England when the leaves turn different colors.

You know autumn has arrived in South Florida when tarpon turns cartwheels off the beach.

While people head north to catch the fall foliage, local anglers head to beaches, fishing piers, and jetties to catch the annual fall mullet run, which happens in October.

The mullet migration offers some of the best, most frenzied fishing of the year, as a variety of predator species show up to feast on the schools of mullet swimming south before heading offshore to spawn.

Tarpon and Spanish mackerel will crash into a mullet school, then they and other fish gobble up the stunned and maimed mullet. Bluefish and jacks will tear through a school and snook will lurk underneath and pick up the pieces. Sharks and ladyfish also get in on the action. Meanwhile, pelicans and seagulls attack the mullet from above.

Mullet congregate along the Atlantic coast in the fall and start swimming south as water temperatures cool. Fishing the mullet run is relatively easy as long as the mullet are present and within casting distance from the surf and piers. If you have a boat, then you can fish the mullet schools wherever they are.

The schools have a mind of their own. Some move straight down the coast at a steady rate of speed. Other schools dawdle, moving south, then stop for a while before continuing. Some schools move along the beach, then head several miles offshore, then come in close again.

Some mullet schools move inshore through an inlet, scatter, then regroup at the next inlet and go back outside. So just because a mullet school is south of Boca Raton this morning doesn’t mean it’ll be off Pompano Beach this afternoon. The fish could go inside Hillsboro Inlet and reappear south of Port Everglades Inlet.

Having reliable sources who call you when the mullet show up is the best way to fish the run. You can also drive along State Road A1A and look for mullet schools, which appear as dark, amoeba-like blobs in the water. If you see fish jumping and birds diving, you know you’re on a good school.

Tom Greene of Lighthouse Point, who started fishing the mullet run more than 60 years ago, said anglers can also go to a pier and see if mullet are passing through. Once the mullet arrive in South Florida, he said there are several good spots that anglers can fish.

“When the mullet get here, you can stand on the south jetty of Jupiter Inlet, and you get a tremendous amount of bait on that south side. They stack up there,” said Greene, the former owner of Custom Rod & Tackle in Lighthouse Point.

“You get there at daylight in the morning, you fish two or three hours and you go home. And the odds are, out of five days, three days that you were there, you will see large amounts of baitfish.

“Boynton Inlet has always been great, and there’s plenty of bait and plenty of fish there. Boca Inlet has been good for the last 10 years, the north side and south side. There’s a tremendous amount of bait all along in there. Fish early morning at Deerfield Pier, Pompano Pier. The rocks south of Pompano Pier, early morning, late afternoon, snook stack up in there every single day.”

Fishing can also be excellent at Juno Pier, as well as along the beach north and south of the pier. That area features plenty of parking and very few restrictions on beach fishing, unlike some cities where fishing is either prohibited or limited to certain times.

Live mullet are the preferred bait, but Greene said a number of soft-plastic lures that imitate baitfish will catch their share of fish during the mullet run. One of his favorite lures is a RedTail Hawk jig or something similar because they are heavy, they don’t tangle easily and they come in a variety of weights such as 1, 11⁄2, and 2 ounces.

To cast your lure out to a mullet school, Greene recommended using a  6 1⁄2 to 7 1⁄2-foot fishing rod with a 12 to 20-pound monofilament line or a 30 to 40-pound braided line.

Some of the most fun fishing is when schools of bluefish and mackerel are terrorizing the mullet. All an angler needs to do is cast a lure just beyond or in front of a mullet school.

“Those bluefish will eat any MirrOlure, any surface bait,” Greene said. “Try not to go with one with too many hooks, or pinch the barbs shut. You’ve got to throw something you can cast a long way that won’t tangle in the weeds.”

Even if you don’t see a mullet school, Greene said to keep casting because you never know what gamefish are hanging around. For example, snook tends to lie in wait in the first trough off the beach, where they are ready to ambush anything that swims by.

“Especially with the snook, you want to cast right and left, not straight out, because most of the snook you catch are in the surf. They’re in that dropoff,” Greene said, adding that married couples can enjoy a day at the beach walking and casting or simply soaking up the sun.

By Steve Waters

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SNOOK season’s on! Start your engines!

Capt. Brian Sanders is on the right holding the snook. All the others are customers of his with snook that they caught with him.

September 1 is a special day for many South Florida anglers because that’s when the snook season opens after being closed for most of the summer.

It’s also one of the best times to catch a snook because the fish are still congregated inside inlets, off beaches, and around bridges.

One of the best places to fish for the popular gamefish is in the 10,000 Islands on Florida’s southwest coast. The remote area, much of which is part of Everglades National Park, probably has the most boat traffic of the year during the first week of September, most of those fishermen hoping to catch a few good-tasting snook to bring home for dinner.

Capt. Brian Sanders, who fishes out of Chokoloskee Island for snook as well as redfish, sea trout, tripletail, cobia, and permit (visit www.sandersoutdoorguide.com) said he’s usually booked for the opening week of snook season 30-45 days in advance. Those with their own boats also invade the area, especially on the first weekend of the season, which this year is Sept. 5-6, followed by Labor Day on Sept. 7.

“This area solely relies on tourism and fishermen,” said Sanders, who has fished out of Chokoloskee for more than 50 years and ranks among the region’s top guides. “The fishermen come, they stay the weekend, they buy fuel, ice, and food. They all come down and descend into the Everglades.”

It’s easy to get turned around in the 10,000 Islands, where many of the mangrove islands look the same. In addition, water levels constantly change with the wind and tides, so a creek or bay that was easy to navigate at high tide could leave a boater stranded during low tide. If you haven’t fished the area before and aren’t going with someone who knows the 10,000 Islands, it makes sense to book an experienced guide such as Sanders.

He is especially good with youngsters and with adults who don’t have much fishing experience and coaches them so they can expertly land multiple species.

“I do a lot of family trips,” said Sanders, who lives in Davie and commutes across Alligator Alley to State Road 29 every day. “Lately it seems I’ve had a lot of husbands and wives and their 12-year-old kid. They let me take all of the guesswork out of fishing.”

On a recent trip, Sanders took his cousin’s 18-year-old son. He had just graduated high school, but because of COVID-19, he didn’t get to enjoy a proper graduation.

“She wanted to do something nice for him and asked if I’d take him and some of his buddies fishing,” Sanders said. “We had seven kids on two boats and we caught lots of redfish and some big snook. We had a great time and all the kids caught big fish.”

Big breeder snook are protected by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to make sure that the state has a healthy population. Anglers are allowed to keep only one snook per day with a total length of 28 – 33 inches along the Gulf coast and in Everglades National Park and the Florida Keys, and one snook 28-32 inches on the Atlantic coast.

The Atlantic coast season is closed from June 1-August 31, which is when snook spawn. The open season is Sept. 1-Dec. 14, then it closes Dec. 15-Jan. 31. The season re-opens Feb. 1-May 31.

Regulations in Everglades National Park, the Florida Keys, and Gulf coast waters are more restrictive, with the season closed from Dec. 1 to the end of February and May 1-Aug. 31. Due to the adverse effects of red tide, the snook season is closed along the Gulf coast from north of Tampa to south of Naples through Aug. 31, 2021.

Snook can be caught and released during the closed seasons, and I’ve enjoyed many trips with Sanders where he pulled up to an island, told me to cast my bait to a downed tree or submerged oyster bar, and I immediately hooked a snook. That’s only half the battle with the hard-fighting fish because they have a knack for swimming to the nearest obstacle and tangling or breaking your fishing line.

Sanders said that when you feel the “thump” of a snook inhaling your bait or lure, reel in the line until it comes tight, then set the hook. If you get excited and jerk the fishing rod with slack in the line, you won’t drive the hook into the snook’s mouth.

“Once the fish is under control and away from the structure, back off,” Sanders said. “Let the fish pull and then you pull. And it’s important to stay on top of your fish. You can’t fight a fish that goes to the back of the boat from the bow.”

Sanders recommended fairly stout tackle to wrestle snook away from rocks, oyster bars, and mangroves. He uses medium-heavy 7-foot spinning rods made by Fairbanks Customs Rods with a 3500 or 4000 series Canyon reel. His main line is a 20-pound braid tied to a 40-pound fluorocarbon leader attached to a 2/0 or 3/0 Mustad Big Gun hook if he’s using live pilchards, threadfin herring, or finger mullet for bait.

His favorite lures are a Live Target 3-inch scaled sardine, which imitates a pilchard, and A Band Of Anglers 3-inch Dartspin Pro, either white with a chartreuse blade or gold with a gold blade.

Whether his customers use live bait or the lures, it’s likely that they’ll be enjoying fried or blackened snook for dinner in September.

By Steve Waters

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A big fisherman in any pond

George Poveromo of Parkland, whose television show “George Poveromo’s World of Saltwater Fishing” airs on Discovery Channel, shows off a nice kingfish.

George Poveromo has caught big fish in oceans, bays, inlets, rivers, and estuaries throughout the coastal United States, as well as from Canada to Brazil to Cuba. But when he’s not on assignment as Editor-at-Large for Salt Water Sportsman magazine or taping episodes of his “George Poveromo’s World of Saltwater Fishing” television show on Discovery Channel, he likes nothing better than relaxing while enjoying the tranquility of his home in Parkland.

A native of North Miami, where he grew up fishing with his father, Poveromo and his wife, Edie, moved to Parkland in 1994, where they raised their daughters Lindsay and Megan.

That the country’s foremost saltwater fishing expert, whose
TV show has aired for 20 years and whose Salt Water Sportsman National Seminar Series has been held for 33 years (visit www.georgepoveromo.com), lives in a quiet residential neighborhood closer to the Everglades than the Atlantic Ocean has many of his readers, viewers and social media followers wondering why.

“I was asked that question a lot, and I’m still occasionally asked that question: ‘What are you doing in Parkland? You’re a saltwater guy. You’re an ocean guy,’” said Poveromo, who keeps his 33-foot Mako fishing boat Marc VI at Garnett Storage in Coral Springs. “When we came up to Parkland, it was like a little bit more of a country kind of atmosphere here. I said, ‘This is a nice place, and I think it’s perfect.’

“I trailer a boat, so one day I could go out of Hillsboro (Inlet in Pompano Beach), the next day I might want to go out of Haulover (Inlet in North Miami Beach) or I might go down to the Keys or go to Palm Beach, so I’m still as flexible as I always was. I think moving to Parkland was a very good choice. And when you do it as much as I do it, it’s sometimes good just to catch a break away from the saltwater environment.”

Poveromo, 62, got hooked on saltwater fishing more than
five and a half decades ago. His father, Mel, a dentist in Bay Harbor Islands, used to take him after work to the nearby Broad Causeway to fish in Biscayne Bay from the seawall. Using a kid-sized rod and reel and a small hook baited with pieces of shrimp, Poveromo caught tiny snappers and grunts.

“I used to love to do that. I think I have Biscayne Bay water going through my veins,” Poveromo said. “My dad was the only one in the family that had the crazy fishing passion, and no one else inherited that except for me.”

When Poveromo was old enough to fish with his father in his boat, they’d fish off Miami or trailer the 23-foot vessel to Key West and run about 30 miles west to the Marquesas. They’d catch snappers and groupers around shallow rock piles, anchor, cook fish for dinner, sleep on the boat and fish the next day before heading back.

“To this day I still try to get down there at least once a year to fish the Marquesas because of all the fond memories,” Poveromo said.

He pursued his passion for fishing while a student at The University of Miami, where he majored in broadcast journalism. Not because he wanted to host a TV fishing show, but because his classes were fairly easy and he could schedule all of them on Tuesday and Thursday, which gave him the opportunity to fish Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Little did Poveromo know how that education at sea would pay off.

Through his success fishing in Mako owner tournaments, he caught the attention of Mako Marine’s marketing director Bill Munro. While a senior at UM, Poveromo was invited by Munro to fish in the Mako Outdoor Writers tournament, an informal gathering that featured editors of the country’s most prestigious fishing magazines. That led to Poveromo writing articles for Outdoor Life and Salt Water Sportsman magazines, and he was hired as a full-time staff writer for the latter publication in 1983.

“So if it wasn’t for Bill Munro and Mako,” Poveromo said with a smile, “I might’ve been forced to become a dentist like my dad wanted me to be.”

Poveromo stayed busy fishing, writing and organizing the seminar series out of North Miami for 10 years, where Edie gave birth to Lindsay. When close friends moved to Broward County, Edie entertained the idea of following their friends north and having Lindsay attend some of Broward’s excellent public schools.

One day, a gentleman from Parkland called Edie to order a seminar ticket, and as Poveromo related, she said, “Parkland, where is that? He said, ‘Oh, I don’t want to tell you, it’s one of the best-kept secrets around.’ She goes, ‘I’m a native Floridian, I’ve never heard of Parkland.’ And he told her, ‘It’s the most magnificent area. It’s just starting to grow. There’s space; you can breathe out here, the school system’s superb. You need to go up and just look at the area.’

“So we took a drive up and looked at the area and then Edie did her research of the school systems. We were fairly close to our friends, and Edie said, ‘That’s the place we’re going to. We’re going to Parkland.’ And that’s what led us here from North Miami.

“I can never see myself moving anywhere else.”

HIGHLIGHTS

During his storied career, George Poveromo has had some amazing fishing experiences. Among the highlights:

  • Produced a TV show fishing on his boat with members of the military at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
  • Caught a 143-pound wahoo fishing in San Salvador, Bahamas, and caught a 113-pounder there three years later.
  • Caught a 701-pound giant bluefin tuna out of Prince Edward Island, Canada.
  • Released a blue marlin estimated to weigh between 700- 800 pounds in Costa Rica.
  • Had a swordfish yank him overboard while fishing in Islamorada when a passing boat’s wake caused him to lose his balance. With help from his cameraman Kevin Tierney, who jumped in the water, Poveromo got back in the boat and, 30 minutes later, landed the 256-pound swordfish.

 

FISHING TIPS

TV show host, seminar organizer, and writer, George Poveromo shared these secrets for saltwater fishing success in South Florida:

Use fresh line: “One of the simplest tips, and I even hate to say it because it just sounds so simple but you’d be shocked at how many people don’t adhere to it except the really good anglers, always make sure your fishing line is new and fresh. When you fight a good fish like a sailfish on a 20-pound test (line), even though that line looks good, the line’s been compromised. It might start off at 20 pounds, but then the breaking strength might fall to 15, 14 pounds, depending on how much it was compromised,” Poveromo said. “What’s going to happen, eventually, is you’re going to hook that trophy fish and if you’re using worn line, chances are that fish could probably go right through it. Line is one of the cheapest things to put on your fishing reel. So change out line religiously, especially after any quality fish you catch.”

Finding fish: “The Gulf Stream is the lifeblood, and it’s essential to know where the true western edge of the Stream is because it meanders. It moves close, it moves farther off,” said Poveromo, who recommended subscribing to SiriusXM Marine fish mapping or ROFFS fishing forecasts. “That warm water current flowing north, you want to find the edge where it meets that nearshore cooler water.
It creates upwellings, and all the upwellings bring these tiny microorganisms in; then the fish that feed on them come in. When you have baitfish along these zones, the bigger gamefish shouldn’t be far behind. If the true western edge is in 600 feet, that’s a good time to troll for dolphin. If it’s in 90 feet, that’s going to be a good edge to fish for sailfish.”

Fish around baitfish: “Always look for bait and signs like working birds,” said Poveromo, who also studies his electronic fish finder for pockets of bait. “If you see flying fish pushing, shut down the boat and fish. There has to be some dolphin around.”

Fish deep: Especially during the heat of a summer day. Poveromo said that if you find a weedline, fish some live baits on the surface and put at least one live goggle-eye down 250-300 feet. Bigger dolphins often hang out below schools of smaller dolphins. “We caught a 34-pound bull dolphin doing that in Islamorada,” he said. “A lot of those big dolphins are down in that cooler water. It makes a big difference.”

By Steve Waters

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Florida’s two-day lobster season starts July 29

After nearly a four-month closure, local divers are eagerly anticipating Florida’s annual lobster mini season on July 29-30.

The two-day sport season, which is the
last consecutive Wednesday and Thursday
in July, is the first opportunity for recreational divers to catch lobsters since the regular season closed on April 1.

Being able to once again gather the main ingredients of a delicious seafood dinner is a big deal, but the mini season is extra special for two additional reasons.

With both the recreational and commercial seasons having been closed for so long, lobsters are generally more abundant during the mini season. They’re also typically less wary than when divers are poking and prodding them with snares, tickle sticks, and nets every day.

Another reason to love mini season in Broward and Palm Beach counties: The daily bag limit is 12 lobsters, or bugs, per person, which is double the regular season limit. (The mini season limit in the Florida Keys and Biscayne National Park is six bugs per person per day. Visit myfwc.com/fishing/ saltwater/recreational/lobster.)

Preparing for the mini season is essential, so now is the time to make sure you and your dive gear are in good condition. Especially if you’re one of those divers who only dives during the mini season.

Divers should bring their equipment to a dive shop to have everything checked out. That includes regulators and BCs (buoyancy compensators), which should be serviced annually. Hoses should be inspected for cracks and tears that could cause leaks.

Even the straps on fins and masks should be examined. It’s always distressing for a diver to get in the water during mini season and have a broken fin or mask strap end the dive before the first bug is bagged. So it’s also a good idea to carry spare straps in your dive gear bag.

Some equipment failures can be deadly, such as a BC that won’t inflate, which could send a diver plummeting to the bottom and not allow the diver to get back to the water’s surface. Likewise, a leaky air hose could cut short a diver’s bottom time or lead to panic, and worse, when the diver realizes he or she is out of air.

The earlier you get to a dive shop this month, the better. Some stores have cutoff dates to service equipment. Those divers who wait until the last minute to bring in their gear, even if just to fill their air tanks, will likely have to sit out the mini season and wait until the regular lobster season opens on Aug. 6 to hunt for lobsters.

Another way to make sure you and your gear are ready for the mini season, especially if you haven’t been in the water in a while, is
to go diving. That way you can re-acquaint yourself with your equipment and proper dive procedures. If any gear issues arise, you can get them addressed.

Diving before the mini season is also a good way to locate lobsters, which hide in coral reefs and rockpiles and under ledges. Jim “Chiefy” Mathie of Deerfield Beach, who has been spearfishing on a regular basis since the lobster season closed, said he and his dive buddies have seen plenty of lobsters, which should make for a successful mini season.

Things can always change based on weather and water conditions, sometimes for the better.

“I remember one year, we went to one of our regular spots the Monday before mini season and if we counted 12 lobsters, that was a lot,” Mathie said. “Come Wednesday morning, it was loaded. We got our seven-man limit of 84.”

A retired Deerfield Beach fire chief, Mathie is the author of “Catching the BUG: The Comprehensive Guide to Catching the Spiny Lobster,” which covers everything from finding to cooking lobsters. The softcover book is available for $24.95 at local dive shops and at chiefy.net and online retailers.

One of Mathie’s tips in the book is to send two divers down to check out a potential lobster hotspot. If the spot is loaded with bugs, the diver towing the dive flag will yank on the line attached to the flag so the divers still in the boat know that there are plenty of lobsters for them.

Another good lobster-hunting tip: If you’re not seeing bugs, but you see lionfish, take a closer look. Lionfish often hang out around lobsters, which might not be readily apparent if they’re hiding deep in a hole in a reef.

In addition to diving before the mini season arrives, those who are new to diving might want to book a mini season trip with an experienced dive operator. Those trips tend to fill up early, so the sooner you call, the better your chances of reserving a spot on a charter dive boat.

By Steve Waters

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Prime time for dolphin fish

The month of June is a prime time to fish for dolphin in South Florida. One of the species most sought after by local offshore anglers, dolphin are plentiful this time of year.

Among the reasons for the popularity of the colorful, acrobatic fish is they often travel in large schools, they jump a lot when they’re hooked, they fight hard, they eat live baits, dead baits and lures, and they taste delicious blackened, grilled, sautéed, fried and even microwaved.

The keys to finding the fish are to look for diving birds, weed lines and floating debris. Birds will hover over a school of dolphin to pick off the baitfish that the voracious dolphin send into the air when they feed on the small fish. Baitfish gather under weed lines and debris such as tree trunks and wooden pallets, which attracts schools of dolphin.

Fishermen get excited when they see a frigate bird flying high overhead because they often follow dolphin in the hopes that the fish will send a flying fish airborne that they can grab. Studying a frigate’s movements is critical to determining if the bird is on a fish.

Frigates that are diving are on fish. Ones that are high in the sky are looking for fish. Frigates that are intently flying south are usually on bigger dolphin because those fish have the strength to swim south into the north-flowing current of the Gulf Stream.

Anglers should get ahead of a frigate bird and start trolling baits or lures to catch the fish the bird is following. A tactic suggested by Capt. Bouncer Smith of Miami Beach is to use live bait to pinpoint the location of the dolphin. He said boaters can get south and west of a frigate that’s flying south and toss some live pilchards into the water. Then they can get directly south of the bird and put out more pilchards and then go east of the bird and do it again.

When you see fish bust the baits, you know where to fish. Smith said to either cast a live bait to the busts or slow-troll over to them.

Smith added that if he gets in front of a frigate bird that doesn’t dive within 10 minutes, the bird is probably not on fish, and Smith looks for another bird.

If he sees little brown birds on the water, that probably means they’re feeding on scraps left behind by dolphin. If he sees a bunch of little birds working a weed patch, that usually means there are blue runners or dolphin under the weeds.

Thick weed lines are often the most productive places to find dolphin because they will tend to hold the most bait. But not always, said Capt. Jim Sharpe of Summerland Key.

“A lot of people think we catch most all of our dolphin on weed lines, which is really not the case,” he said. “We catch 80 percent of our fish on birds or out of the blue. Birds meaning little 15-inch sooty terns and of course frigate birds, they’re excellent.

“A lot of times you’ll find a nice weed line, but there’s no bait under that weed. In that case you’re not going to have a bunch of fish around the weed line. I’ve seen times in the summer when there’d be a beautiful weed line but no bait under it. And you look off to the side a half a mile away and you see the sooty terns working and that’s where the dolphin are. They’re out there eating the flying fish because there’s nothing under the weed line.”

Sometimes scattered weeds, which many anglers run past, can hold dolphin.

I had a trip with a friend out of Hillsboro Inlet where we passed some so-so weeds nine miles off the inlet as we searched for birds and thick weed lines. After going 20 miles offshore without seeing either, we decided to go back to the patchy weeds and slow-troll some live goggle-eyes on spinning outfits.

It didn’t take long for a dolphin to eat one of the baits. A few minutes later we saw a bigger fish cruise by, its green and yellow body easy to spot in the clear blue water. We cast out a goggle-eye and the dolphin ate it almost immediately. After a brief battle, that fish joined the first dolphin in the boat’s cooler.

If you come across a school of dolphin, most captains agree that live bait should be your last choice. Instead, anglers should start off by casting chunks of bait, such as ballyhoo or bonito, to the schoolies. 

When the fish tire of the chunks or ignore them, Smith will use a knife to trim and streamline pieces of bait so they resemble small baitfish such as glass minnows. Another option is to cast bucktail jigs to the fish, which pulsate as they are retrieved and can look more enticing to dolphin than dead bait.

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Wahoo at August moon

Wahoo can be caught year-round off South Florida, but the full moon in August is the absolute best time to catch one of the big, speedy, tasty gamefish.

Capt. Tony DiGiulian shows off a nice wahoo. (Photo courtesy of Tony DiGiulian)

The wahoo fishing is so good around the full moon, which is Aug. 15, that you don’t even need a powerboat to catch one.

“To me, August is the prime time to get those monster wahoo,” said Joe Hector, who fishes out of a kayak and also runs kayak fishing tournaments out of Pompano Beach. His ExtremeKayakFishing.com tournament two years ago in August produced eight wahoo, including a 71.9-pounder and two others over 50 pounds.

No one knows why wahoo are so abundant in South Florida around August’s full moon, and those who catch them don’t really care. The hard-fighting fish take off when they’re hooked, typically running out several hundred yards of line. Once an angler gets a wahoo close to the boat or kayak, the fish often take off again.

Anglers also love wahoo because they are delicious. Their firm, white flesh is great grilled or seared. The daily bag limit is two wahoo per angler.

Wahoo are a favorite of South Florida anglers because they fight hard and they’re great to eat. (Steve Waters photo)

Given their choice, most captains and anglers would fish for wahoo before and after the August full moon.

“I’ve caught them all the way out from a week before the full moon to a week, a week and a half after the full moon,” said Hector, whose personal-best wahoo was a 65-pounder.

Capt. Skip Dana, of Deerfield Beach, who runs charters on his center console Pop-A-Top out of Pompano Beach, prefers to fish “three to four days before a full moon and then a few days after. The day of the full moon is usually slower, with the best bite at mid-day.”

Many wahoo anglers troll lures or dead baits or a combination of both using planers, which are metal plates that help get the lures and baits 30 to 40 feet below the surface. But Dana said live baits are especially effective around the full moon in August as well as in September.

“You get more bites live-bait fishing than any time of year. I’d rather catch one on live bait than 10 trolling a lure on a planer,” said Dana, who starts fishing in the morning by putting up two fishing kites, each with three lines. The kites get the baits away from the boat and suspend them at or just below the surface. He also puts out two flat lines with live baits that can swim wherever they want, along with two lines with sinkers to get those baits down deeper.

“Once the sun is up, I’ll start slow-trolling for them. I’ll go out to 200, 300, 400 feet and put out goggle-eyes, blue runners, speedos, little bullet bonitos. All you’re doing is bumping the motors in and out of gear to keep the lines tight as you move.

“I’ll put a flat line 200 yards back, and one 50 or 60 yards back. I’ll put a downrigger bait on each side of the boat and stagger them. I’ll start at 75 and 125 feet down, and if I get a bite on the deeper one, I’ll go to 125 and 200 feet.”

Dana fishes Penn Fathom high-speed reels spooled with 20-pound Momoi Orange Crush monofilament line on 7-foot medium-action 20-pound rods. He uses a 15-foot 30-pound Momoi fluorocarbon leader. To prevent cut-offs from sharp-toothed wahoo, he adds a three-foot piece of 30-pound Knot 2 Kinky nickel-titanium leader wire attached to the fluorocarbon with an 80-pound Spro swivel. The other end of the leader is tied to a 6/0 VMC hook attached by a short piece of No. 6 wire to a 4/0 VMC stinger hook.

Hector, who uses spinning outfits with 30-pound monofilament, a 50-pound leader and a 6- or 7-inch piece of 30- or 40-pound wire, also prefers live bait for wahoo. Before heading to the beach to launch his kayak, he buys five goggle-eyes and three pilchards from a bait shop. He keeps them in a 5-gallon bucket with a battery-powered aerator. Once he catches a wahoo, he heads back to shore, which is why he doesn’t need a lot of bait.

“When I’m targeting wahoo, my trips are short and sweet,” he said. “I’ll put out my first gog on the way out in 80 feet, then set up a drift. I fish a pilchard on top with a gog below. If you put out two gogs together, you’re going to end up with a tangled mess.

“Believe it or not, I’ve caught more wahoo on a big pilchard than on gogs. Some of my best catches have been on a 6-inch pilchard.”

That ties in with something Capt. Cory Burlew said about why he trolls smaller lures than most captains.

Burlew, whose GoddessCharters.com fishes out of Deerfield Beach, likes to troll dark-colored lures for big wahoo, such as black-and-red, blue-and-black and black-and-purple. Instead of fishing 12-inch lures, his lures are 8 to 10 inches long to better match what wahoo eat. “Sometimes the smaller ones seem to catch more fish and bigger fish because wahoo feed on flying fish and small tuna,” Burlew said. “I feel like the big ones are lazy. They’d rather eat a small bait. It’s like walking by a buffet, are you going to pick up a French fry or a baked potato?”

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Silly Season, Serious Fun

South Florida’s fave holiday? Lobster miniseason

South Florida divers always look forward to lobster miniseason, which for them is the biggest unofficial holiday of the year.

Properly known as the two-day sport season, which is the last consecutive Wednesday and Thursday in July, miniseason is the first chance for recreational divers to catch lobsters since the regular season closed on April 1. That usually means lobsters are abundant, as commercial traps have been out of the water since that date, and the bugs, as they are known, haven’t been netted or snared by divers.

In addition, the tasty crustaceans are less wary than usual, which makes them easier to catch. Instead of retreating into a hole in a coral reef or under a ledge, like they do during the regular season, which opens Aug. 6, bugs in late July tend to stand their ground when a diver approaches.

Another reason the miniseason attracts thousands of divers to South Florida is the daily limit outside of the Florida Keys is 12 lobsters per person, which is double the regular-season limit. (For regulation info, visit MyFWC.com.)

To get their limit, a fair number of divers will be in the water at 12:01 a.m. July 24, when the miniseason begins. Most boaters don’t head offshore until five or six hours later. They’ll be back on July 25 to hopefully get another limit of bugs and the makings of a lobster feast for them and their families and their non-diving friends.

Divers prepare for the miniseason weeks before it arrives. Dive gear such as regulators and BCs (buoyancy compensators) are taken to a dive shop for service and air tanks are filled.

Doing some dives also is part of pre-miniseason prep, both to locate areas with lobsters and to make sure all your equipment is working properly. For lobster divers, few things are as disappointing as having the strap on a mask or a fin break during miniseason. Unless you have a replacement strap, you probably won’t be catching any lobsters.

Two years ago, I dove the Monday before miniseason with my good friend Jim “Chiefy” Mathie of Deerfield Beach. We were on the bottom in about 60 feet and my mask was taking on water. When I tried to clear it, the lenses popped out into my hands.

Mathie escorted me back to the surface. As it turned out, the mask’s frame had cracked. Fortunately, Mathie had another mask on his boat that I used that day.

The author of the book Catching the BUG: The Comprehensive Guide to Catching the Spiny Lobster, Mathie will have a free lobster-hunting seminar on July 23 from 6-7 p.m. to begin Lauderdale-by-the-Sea’s eighth annual BugFest, a celebration of miniseason and the town’s beach access to local reefs.

Following the seminar is a free miniseason kickoff party — both will be held at Plunge Beach Hotel — during which divers can register for BugFest’s popular Great Florida Bug Hunt. For a $20 entry fee, divers receive a goody bag and T-shirt and the opportunity to win cash and terrific prizes such as regulators, dive computers, air tanks, dive boat trips, and hotel stays.

The Chiefy crew lined up its limit of lobsters caught during the first day of the 2018 miniseason. (Photo courtesy Steve Waters)

In the past, a $1,000 prize was awarded to the two-person team catching the heaviest total weight of 12 bugs on Wednesday. This year, $500 goes to the team with the heaviest weight caught off Broward County and $500 to the duo with the top weight caught off Miami-Dade or Palm Beach counties. Other prizes include $400 for the biggest bug caught anywhere off a boat, $400 for the biggest bug caught off the beach, and a Sherwood Oasis regulator valued at $420 for the biggest bug caught on a midnight beach dive off Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. There are also prizes for the biggest bugs caught Wednesday on the 6 a.m. dives on the Aqua View and Black Pearl dive boats at South Florida Diving Headquarters in Pompano Beach.

Divers don’t need to bag big bugs to win big. They receive a raffle ticket for each lobster they weigh in on Wednesday and Thursday. Winning tickets are drawn at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, following the lobster chef competition, which starts at 6 at the Beach Pavilion at the end of Commercial Boulevard. So, a diver who weighs 24 lobsters can win multiple prizes. Divers can register in advance at Gold Coast Scuba in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea or South Florida Diving Headquarters or online at DiscoverLBTS.com.

“It’s fun for the divers. It gives them more of an incentive,” said Steve d’Oliveira, the town’s Public Information Officer. “The town knows that BugFest is fun for divers and they get behind it, and everybody has a good time.” Other activities include a midnight beach dive on Tuesday, a fish identification seminar on July 26, a free clean-up dive under and around Anglin’s Pier at 8 a.m. July 27, and the third annual Diveheart Benefit Concert from 6:30-10:30 that night.

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Dolphin Put Color in Summer Fishing

Most offshore anglers in South Florida are focused on catching dolphin in the month of June. The colorful fish — not the mammal — are popular because they fight hard and jump a lot, they can be caught on a variety of baits and lures, and people love to eat them.

Although dolphin are caught year-round locally, this is the time of year when they are plentiful. The bag limit is 10 fish, a minimum of 20-inches long— per person per day or 60 fish per boat, whichever is less. Many anglers keep only enough dolphin for a few meals — the fish are terrific fried, blackened or in tacos — and safely release everything else back into the water.

Late spring and summer are when dolphin are often found in schools ranging from half a dozen to dozens of fish. Locating those schools is usually a matter of locating birds, weedlines, or floating debris.

Weedlines, patches of grass and debris such as tree trunks and wooden pallets, attract baitfish, which attract dolphin. Birds often hover over dolphin, hoping they’ll chase bait to the surface. Like serious bird-watchers hoping to spot a species they’ve never seen before, dolphin fishermen are always on the lookout for frigate birds.

Also known as a man-o’-war bird, a frigate bird has a forked tail and a wide wingspan that allows it to soar over the ocean, then suddenly swoop down to catch a fish with its long, hooked bill. The bird does not dive into the water. Instead, it waits for dolphin to send flying fish and other small fish fleeing to the surface. When a baitfish goes airborne, the frigate zips in and snags it. (A frigate also scores easy meals by harassing other seabirds so that they drop their catch, which the frigate grabs before it hits the water.)

When running offshore, some captains will stop every five minutes or so to scan the horizon with binoculars in the hopes of spotting birds or debris. Others will designate crew members to keep an eye on the sky.

If frigate birds are swooping, that’s a good sign. If birds are sky-high, they’re looking for dolphin, so it might not be worthwhile to race over to them.

“High birds, if they’re way up there, they’re taking advantage of their eyesight to look for something to play with,” said Capt. Bouncer Smith, a legendary charter fishing captain in Miami Beach. “If they’re 200 feet high, they’re probably into something. When they start to dive, then they’re really in the game.”

Smith added that anglers must pay attention to the direction a frigate bird is flying.

“If birds are working to the north, they’re over smaller dolphin or tunas,” Smith said. “If a bird is on good-sized fish, he’s going to be going south, because good-sized fish go against the current. The big dolphin are swimming just fast enough to hold their position in the current — the Gulf Stream is moving north at 3-4 mph — and eat what comes by.”

Smith, who runs charters out of Miami Beach Marina on Bouncer’s Dusky 33 (CaptBouncer.com), said anglers need to get ahead of a frigate flying south to have a shot at catching the dolphin the bird is following. If they stay to the north of a south-flying bird, the fish have already passed their boat.

“A lot of times when you’re on frigate birds, you’ve got to wind the lines in and get ahead of the frigate and let the dolphin catch up to you,” Smith said.

Once his boat is in position, Smith rigs two spinning outfits with live baits — pilchards, goggle-eyes, small blue runners, or cigar minnows — hooked through the nose. He has his anglers cast the baits 50-100 feet behind the boat. They leave the reel bails open and control the lines with their index fingers while Smith idles ahead of the bird.

“When a fish eats, give him a short drop-back, close the bail and wind,” said Smith.

Once you’re hooked up, it’s not unusual for the rest of the school to appear behind the boat. That’s when fishing can get frantic, with multiple anglers fighting fish and trying to not tangle their lines. Like a choreographer, Smith often has to tell anglers to go over or under another angler’s line.

To keep dolphin around the boat, many anglers leave one or more hooked fish in the water, which attracts other dolphin. When the next fish is hooked, the first one can be boated, and so on. If, after you’ve boated several dolphin, the school disappears, try splashing the water with a gaff to get the fish to return because it sounds like a feeding frenzy that they’re missing out on.

When the schoolies are solid behind the boat, you can catch them on dead bait, jigs, topwater plugs, and even flies. Smith recommends buying a 1-pound box of squid and casting the 3- to 4-inch baits to the fish. A one-ounce kingfish jig retrieved as fast as possible also entices strikes from dolphin. But Smith’s favorite way to catch schoolies is on a fly rod. “Better too small a fly than too big a fly,” said Smith, adding that yellow is an effective color. It also helps to toss out a few glass minnows every once in a while, to keep the fish turned on.

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