Summer Time!
Capt. Dean Panos
June 10, 2024
Miami - Saltwater Fishing Report
Sorry for the delay in reports but we have been fishing a whole lot. Sailfish season is pretty much over although we do catch sailfish year-round in Miami, but we are now switching gears and targeting mahis in the Gulfstream. Last years mahi season was a bust, but so far this year it has been very good. We have caught our limit of mahis on every trip this year. The limit is 10 per person with a 20-inch minimum. Last year we were plagued by a lot of sub legal mahis but that doesn't seem to be the case this year. Along with the mahis and especially if we find something decent floating in the water we can also target wahoo. This is one of the best family trips you can take and is especially rewarding for young anglers. There is nothing like the sight of seeing a school of mahis swimming next to the boat. It's exciting for both the seasoned anglers as well as the inexperienced anglers.
We did do a couple of trips across to the Bahamas targeting yellowfin tunas. Those trips were a huge success. On our first trip we found the tunas and were steadily catching yellowfins and big blackfins. The yellowfins were up to 80 pounds. While we were tuna fishing, we hooked a very big tuna. I was on the rod and after 30 minutes we all knew that this was going to be a very big yellowfin, probably well over 125 pounds. An hour into the fight – stand up in a harness, we started seeing the big tuna below doing its circles under the boat. Inch by inch we got the fish closer and put a couple of gaffs in it. Much to everyone's surprise it turned out to be a 176-pound big eye tuna. Big eyes are not very common in the Bahamas and catching one this big was truly a fish of a lifetime. We had another trip to the Bahamas for tuna a couple of weeks later and crushed the yellowfins and blackfins again. We also did very well with huge yellowtail snappers. The final day we decided to fish for marlin, and we did get a nice blue u on the squid chain and pulled on her for a few but were not able to get her to switch over to one of the trolled baits. A week after that we were back in the Bahamas fishing a tournament and wouldn't you know it, but we hooked another huge tuna. This was either another bigeye tuna or a very large yellowfin. After an hour we had her pinwheeling under the boat, but she wore through the leader. A true heartbreaker but we did manage to catch enough big tunas to earn us 3rd place in the tourney.
We also did well with big blackfin tunas in Miami this year. That season is slowly coming to an end as I mentioned earlier, we are now concentrating on mahis in the Gulfstream. As well as mahis, we are also targeting daytime swordfish (we did catch a big swordfish a month or so ago – It weighed in at 398 pound). We will also hopefully be heading back to the Bahamas for some more fishing
.
Now is the time to book your summertime trips. Great weather and calm seas are the norm and hopefully plenty of fish all summer long.
Tight Lines,
Capt. Dean Panos
Miami Fishing Forecast:
Offshore for mahis and swordfish, Bahamas for tunas and
Target Species:
Swordfish, mahis, Tunas
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