550 Sailfish!

[Captain Gil Gutierrez]

550 Sailfish

That’s how many sailfish were caught in the Sailfish Kickoff this weekend. If I were to tell you that you were going to go 9/14 on sailfish during any tournament you would think “Great that would put us in the top 10”. How wrong we were. During our first day of fishing we went 8/10 but were no where close to the eventual winners of the tournament who ended up with a 22 fish total after 2 days of fishing.

Oh by the way that’s 550 sailfish off the waters of Miami, Florida. Not some exotic destination in Central America. If you have read my reports you would see that all during the summer I kept saying that we were going to have a great sailfish bite come winter. Well, 550 sailfish in two days of fishing is not too bad. On the first day of the tournament they were calling in fish at the rate of one fish every minute and 10 seconds!

As you can see the fishing is starting to get into high gear and you to can enjoy this type of fishing with out having to carry your passport with you. The tarpon are starting to show up so that fishery will soon start to take off. Mahi mahi, kingfish, swordfish, and sailfish are all possible. Speaking of tarpon we are getting into the time of year where the tarpon are literally right outside the marina on the beach. No long runs to the fishing grounds and no hot sun. It’s a great way to spend time with family and friends with out doing an 8 hr trip. We have some dates open but we are starting to fill up.



If your looking to catch your first sail, tarpon, of any other species give me a call my rates are very reasonable and my tackle and boat are first rate. Enough business back to fishing!



One of the great things is that out of those 550 sailfish ALL 550 were released to fight another day. I'm often asked if the hooks we leave in them hurt the fish. My reply is have you seen the youth of today. They have all sorts of thing thru their nose, ears, tongues, lips and other parts we can't mention. They don't seem any more worse for wear. Add in the fact that fish live in a very corrosive environment that rusts just about everything and the hook probably won't be there for long. I myself have caught several different species of fish that have had other hooks in them and they seemed to be just fine. I have also seen mahi eat one bait, break the hook off, then go right over to the other bait and eat that. On my boat I release all sailfish irregardless if it is a tournament or not. Most of the time if the customers are from out of state and they don’t want to keep any fish then we will release all the fish.


Well that’s it for now. Next month we will be fishing The Mayors Cup Sailfish Tournament. I will keep you posted and see where we finish there


Best of Luck…

Capt Gil Gutierrez
www.luckyfishingcharters.com