June 7, 2004

[Captain Bouncer]

June brings good fishing

June is treating us well. We ended May with a lesson in frustration as 9 times on Sunday night our squid were attacked by swordfish. We had a big sword up and jumping, till the hook came out. We had swordfish banging on the bait till they lost interest without getting hooked. We had leaders within a couple feet of the boat when the hook came out of the swordfish. 9 strikes and no catches.

June first we went sword fishing for a couple of hours. Put the baits in the water at 9 PM. We pulled the hooks on a very small swordfish about 9:30. We caught and released a swordfish about 45 pounds and 47.5 inches before 10. Swordfish must be 47 inches from the tip of the lower jaw to the fork of the tail to meet the federal limit. I think it should be about 55 inches. At 11 we had another strike. With a solid hookup we were in the game. An hour latter we landed a nice 100 pound swordfish, which our anglers were already dreaming of grilling and headed home.

For those trying sword fishing, we had both live bait and rigged squid out 2 of the last 3 trips. We had no strikes on the live bait. We had a four strikes at the 150 foot depth, one strike at 250 and eleven strikes below 300 feet. This fishing was all under a bright moon.

We didn’t fish again till Friday. We spent most of the day wreck fishing a caught a black grouper, a gray grouper, 4 mutton snappers, 4 big lane snappers, 2 kingfish and a couple bonitos.

Saturday we fished the “Miami Dolphins/Cigna Health Care Tournament”. 80 top local boats fished for dolphin, tuna, wahoo and kings. At the end of the day Paul Castronovo aboard his Hectic Days II had won with 106.5 pounds of dolphin found under a tree in 2500 feet of water. Our boat, Bouncer’s Dusky 33 with lead angler Ben Blanco, came in second with 60 pounds of kingfish. We had another 30 pounds which were not allowed due to some angler registration confusion. Of course this would not have affected the outcome. Third place went to the L&H with Captain Neil Orange. Ben also took top kingfish honors.

June should offer a few more blackfin tuna before the season ends. Snook are now catch and release only. Good tarpon action should last for one more month. And dolphin should be hot!. For those who like late nights, it is mangrove on the reef time. Please release some for the future, Bouncer