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I just received the monthly "Fishing Report" from Captain Jim Sharpe who runs his Sportfishing Charter boat "SeaBoots" in the Florida Keys and I had the opportunity to work with for six years. Above is a photo of a 50lb. Dolphin that was caught a few years back to use as a comparison to the "70 lb. Bull Dolphin" as noted in the following fishing report.
Fishing in May and June has been excellent. It seems that the migrations of fish particularly dolphin have been running about three weeks to a month late. Normally we see a lot of big dolphin in April. The big dolphin came in May. There were lots of very large dolphin, we lost a bull that looked to be about 70 or 80 pounds. Unfortunately we hooked the fish of a 20 pound spinning outfit. We were fighting two 30 to 35 pound cows on thirty pound test when the big bull showed up. he followed one of the cows right up to the back of the boat. We baited the bull about five feet off the stern with a whole ballyhoo on the spinner. After several long runs and a beautiful air show the line raped on the rod tip and we broke him off. Tip rapping is common after fighting several large dolphin. Each time the handle turns on the spinning reel if line is not gained the line twists. After a long fight all you have to do is bow the rod with no tension and the line will rap the rod tip. Then the fish runs and "broke line". The way to prevent this is to only wind when you are gaining line. No matter how careful you are the line still tends to spin. Maybe that’s where the name spinning reel came from? We prefer to use conventional rod and reels for trolling this eliminates the problem, casting to big dolphin with spin tackle is a lot of fun. Here in the lower keys there were a number of dolphin brought in over 50-pounds and a 67-pound bull was reported. Aprils big fish came in May and large numbers of small school dolphin showed up in June.
We have been blessed with a good number of bill fish; sail, blue and white marlin and spear fish in May and June. In one three day period we hooked eight bill fish landing only two sail fish. We have been consistently raising one to three bill fish each day. During the last two weeks the small school dolphin have showed up in great numbers. A few large dolphin have been showing up as well. One of our anglers eight years old caught an released 40 dolphin only one was of legal size 20 inch fork measurement. This week the big Dolphin and big Wahoo have made a good showing. On Tuesday we landed a 40 pound Wahoo and lost a 50 “pounder” right at the boat. We also had a nice catch of 30 pound dolphin and large “schoolie’s“. Water temperatures are warming up 83.6 degrees and the dolphin will be pushing father offshore later this month. But that is good because there are a lot of bill fish around including marlin. The tuna will show up later this month and be strong in July and August.
We have decided to rent our Cudjoe Key Ocean front property seasonally. Its a very large home located on a natural beach right on the ocean with magnificent sunsets. Boats up to 30 foot can be docked at the rear of the property with direct access to the ocean and gulf. Boat rentals are available. This property has been upgraded and should be ready for seasonal renting some time in July. For more information call 1-800-238-1746. Thank you for fishing with us, hope you are having a great summer. Remember we have my Dolphin Book, T-shirts and videos and DVD's For more information check our web site at
http://www.seaboots.com/ E-mail us at seaboots5@aol.com. tight lines and good fishing Captain Jim Sharpe
