June Offshore Forecast

Crushed it on our June 2 Tuna Trip!

MAY RECAP

Can’t complain about May one bit when it comes to the fishing. We did have a week stretch of very rough seas with East wind that didn’t allow us to do anything, so that would be my one complaint. Nearshore the action was good for a wide variety of sharks species, including a bunch of hammerhead shark being released. Goliath groupers were steady cooperating, and we started to see a few tarpon in the mix. I have seen several catches of nice size flounder being brought back and reports of the snook fishing being solid.

May mahi run was textbook with the best catches immediately following rough sea conditions and bigger fish toward the beginning of the month and little fish toward the end. The king was happy and we had phenomenal slow trolling with a solid king bite. We had an incredible mix of mahi, black fin tuna, cobia and sailfish mixed in with the kings. The sailfish really started to ramp up toward the end of the month with fish being released daily.

The bottom bite was just what the bottom bite is these days. You deal with a lot of snapper and lose a lot of fish to sharks and occasionally you sneak a grouper or a amberjack past them. The handful of trips to the other side of the Gulf Stream for yellowfin tuna were good and even with tough conditions we had great results.

June Near Shore Fishing Forecast

With any luck we will settle into summer with minimal wind allowing for the water clarity to clean up. When the water cleans up, tremendous fun can be had live bait trolling the beach. This is the time of year we get to enjoy the short travel times that South Florida gets to enjoy year-round. We need some pogy’s to show in a bad way but for now we do have some white baits such as pilchards and threadfins that are better than nothing. Live bait trolling the beach is perfect for summer mornings before it gets too hot and before the late afternoon storms come through. King mackerel, tarpon, bonito, sharks, barracuda, jack crevalle and cobia are all very common catches. Calm seas, clear water and family fun in the Florida salt air is just around the corner.

June Offshore Fishing Forecast

Live bait trolling is your ticket to success as we get further into summer. The morning bite for kings & a mix bag of any and everything else is going to be where the action is at and then some open water trolling for sailfish plus any other bonuses to finish out the day is going to be a solid game plan most days.

Let’s take a minute to talk about the differences, advantages, disadvantages of live bait trolling and traditional blue water or open water trolling. Most of the time when customers who don’t deep sea fish much call and ask what kind of fishing will we be doing my answer most of the time is slow trolling or live bait trolling. As soon as I say trolling, I can immediately identify those who have done fishing charters in Costa Rica, Hawaii, Mexico or other similar destinations. Their first thought is that it will be very slow action and they always tell me that they would rather have action than fish for trophies all day. I always explain that this is different than Hawaii, I take a shot in the dark and 1 out of 4 times I am right which completely blows their mind that I knew they fished in Hawaii. Slow trolling, live bait trolling and king fishing are all the same thing but if anyone actually reads these forecasts, they know that I hate referring to it as king fishing. The only thing usually slow about slow trolling is the speed of the boat, other than that this is usually the fastest action you can get. The way it works is you zig zag whatever area you pick until you get bites and mark fish. The fish that you mark are usually king mackerel, and most of the time they are very aggressive. Once we get the bites or mark the fish we go from a zig zag to a circle. The circle is the reason that we only run 3 lines while slow trolling. We have a long, medium and a short or a downrigger line. The bites start coming quick and we often have triple hook ups on king mackerel. King fish are great eating fresh and smoked but they do not freeze well. Therefore, some people that are impatient start saying, “another king fish” or say “we are king fishing” I really want to say, “well you knuckle head why do you think these kings are here?”, but I don’t. The kings are there because you have everything in the area that every fish wants. A food source, water clarity to hunt, and the right water temperature. If the kings are there then I guarantee that cobia, mahi, sailfish, wahoo, blackfin tuna, barracuda, bonito and sharks are right in that area also. Since everything is there then all you must do is put in time and a few of them other species will eventually beat out a king to the bait. The overall advantages of slow trolling are faster action, less travel time and good variety. Disadvantages are that you must weed through a lot of king mackerel because you can only eat so much fresh and make so much smoked fish.

Blue water trolling is what most people think of when they think of trolling. This is where you cover more water to increase your odds at more free roaming pelagic species such as sailfish, marlin, mahi, tuna and wahoo. Basically, we are cutting out the action of the king fish & eliminating the possibility of structure based species such as cobia and african pompano. . Blue water trolling is where we deploy outriggers and troll at faster speeds with rigged natural bait such as ballyhoo. We also use a combination of diving lures, surface lures, teasers and or dredges. The idea is to cover a lot of water and make a big presence. We are creating our own bait ball or we are or own structure. We want to make ourselves a fish magnet so anything we get in range of will swim into our spread and find something it wants to eat. The advantages of blue water trolling are that you do have a better chance at a wider variety of species and the species that are traditionally more sought after. The disadvantage is that the action is usually a lot slower and you end up with more travel time.

Tuna fishing will be good this month. It is still early enough that the water temperature hasn’t spiked making the fish stay down or be finicky. With any luck calm seas will prevail making it easier to make the long ride to the fishing grounds.

I’ve also starting video fishing reports for BD Outdoors and you can see that at this link.

We look forward to a great June!