June Fishing South Florida

The Hooked Up crew started the month of June fishing with Robert from Magnolia, Texas and Chester from Bellville, Texas; the fishing conditions were not the best, no current and 20 knot winds out of the East made for very rough seas. Because of these conditions, we figured the best thing to do would be to put the kites up and see what we could catch. Once again it paid off, first we hooked into a kingfish, this one was a nice one, it ended up weighing 28 pounds; and let me tell you, with the weather like it was it was no easy task to catch it but we finally did. After that we hooked into a monster barracuda and once again it was not an easy catch but at last we pulled it in. After that all hell broke lose, we hooked into three 30 plus pound black fin tunas at the same time. We only had 2 anglers so they each fought one and we left the third one in the rod holder. Well the one in the rod holder finally got away, the one Robert had on we finally caught and the one Chester had on we were just about to gaff it when the fish turned the other way and got away. All in all we had a pretty good catch and plenty of fish for dinner.

On the 5th we had people from all over the world come and spend the afternoon fishing off the coast of South Florida with the Hooked up fishing team. We had Eduardo from Mexico, Dave and Pam from Chicago, Reagan and Frank from Boston and Paul from Brazil. We decided to go right after some big fish, so we went out to 350 feet of water, put up our kite and suspended some baits from them, then we also put bait about 150 feet down and 1 more on the bottom. It took a little waiting but it all paid off. Dave ended up catching a real nice hammerhead shark and Frank ended up with a big bull shark.

The 6th was a great day to be charter fishing in Ft. Lauderdale, today was one of those days where you can do no wrong, no matter what you do. We started our morning out as usual, meeting our guests, and let me tell you each and everyone of this group had very distinct personalities and each one was better than the one before. These guys were all from Louisiana and after meeting them I have decided I have to go there one day, and if everyone else in that state is like these guys, I may just have to stay! These guys are all down here for a food distribution business convention. Johnny and Melinda, who own a big Hot Sauce company, chartered the Hooked Up and brought along, Walter, their #1 salesman and his wife Karen and Jay, their distributor, and his wife Karen. We asked Johnny what he would like to catch and he had his heart set on dolphin fish so we started trolling with some ballyhoo and ended up about 6 miles offshore. At first things were a little slow but it didn’t take long for that to turn around. As we were trolling, I saw a big fin in the water, I wasn’t sure what it was, so I headed right for it and before we knew it we were doing battle with a monster dolphin and before we could clear the other lines we had a another one on. So there we were, Johnny fighting one and his wife Melinda fighting the other one, they battled these fish for a good 20 minutes and it paid off with them both landing their fish; they now have his and hers dolphins. Johnny caught a 35 plus bull dolphin and Melinda caught a 30 plus dolphin. Up next were the 2 Karen’s and they both brought in dolphins, then it was time for Walter to get a chance and he took full advantage of his time with the rod, landing a monster barracuda, then Jay closed out the trip with a barracuda of his own. Thanks guys I can honestly say this was one of the fun nest days I have had fishing in quite some time, looking forward to seeing you again.

The 7th was a pretty busy day for the Hooked Up crew, we had a morning trip from 8am to 12:00 and then an afternoon trip from 1pm to 5pm; both groups of anglers hailed from Tennessee and are associated with Toyota. Jason, Doug, Gary, Chris, Joe and Andy joined us for the morning adventure which we started off by trolling down the reef with 2 deep lines on planners and we had ballyhoo on the surface lines. We gave it a good shot but the fish were not biting so after about an hour we decided to try a different plan. We had heard of a few dolphins being caught off shore so we discussed the pros and cons of heading way off shore where the dolphin were going to be few and far between, so there would be a good chance of coming back with nothing, or staying in a little closer and setting up the kite with live baits on the surface, dropping a deep bait away from the boat and close to the bottom, another one about half the distance to the boat and halfway to the surface and then one right behind the boat. We decided on option #2 since it gave the fish a bigger variety of baits to choose from. Let me tell you, we made the right decision; Chris got one hell of a workout, a good 40 minutes of fighting and finally successfully catching a monster hammerhead shark. Nice catch! Since our morning deployment of baits worked so well we thought we would try it again when we were joined by Kathy, Doug, Sara, Mark and Randy for the afternoon charter and see if they could bring in another big shark. So, we started putting out the baits and before we could even get all of them out we were hooked up with a nice dolphin fish. Unfortunately he was the only one to give our anglers a try while we were at that location. So, once again we decided to switch our fishing styles and went in to shallower water and caught some live blue runners and then used them around one of the ledges and caught a really big barracuda. Fishing was a little slow but these guys from Tennessee hung tough and caught some nice fish.

Sean, who has fished with us in the past joined us on the 9th and brought along, Carlos, Charles and Miguel, who he does business with here. When ask what they wanted to catch they all said the same thing, something good to eat. Since this was Saturday, I knew there would be a lot of boats offshore fishing for dolphin so we decided to try something different. We started out on the reef looking for kingfish and it paid off. We ended up with a box full of kingfish and then we did some deep drops looking for grouper. The groper was not biting but we did end up catching 6 nice amberjacks. After the drops we decided to give offshore a try, we put in 10 miles and had no bites so we came back in on the reef and ended the rip with a couple of nice barracudas.

The Hooked Up crew had 2 trips on the 10th. We started the morning off with Gary, Kyle, Sergio and Dominick from Orlando, Florida. We started the trip out by trolling the reef and caught a monster bonito and several kingfish; then we headed offshore looking for some dolphin fish. We found the dolphin and caught quite a few of them but we only got to keep a few since the others were too small, but it was a lot of fun catching them on light tackle. Our afternoon trip was Mike and his son from Pennsylvania. We decided to try something different from the morning trip so we went out about 2 miles and put up the kite with some live bait and then dropped some dead bait at deferent levels. After we got everything set out we could not believe it but we had a sailfish swim right through all out baits and never give them a second look, but finally a nice hammerhead came swimming up and he was hungry and ate a bait out of the kite so we got to catch him. After the hammerhead we decided to try out luck on one of the ledges and ended the trip with a nice barracuda

We spent the afternoon of the 11th fishing with Jeff, Dean, Houman and Mike from Chicago and Maryland. We started the trip out trolling the reef looking for some kingfish, but they were not biting so we decided to just go for it and try for something big. So, we put out a couple of kites and suspended live baits right on the surface and then we dropped some deep bait to see what was happening on the bottom. It took a little while but the change up paid off, we caught a real nice golden hammerhead shark.

The 12th of June was a tough day of fishing off the coast of South Florida. We had no current what so ever and we needed to produce some fish. We had JR and Andrew from Alabama down to spend the morning fishing on the Hooked Up. We started out trolling down the reef, no luck at all so we put out our kites with some live bait and we also put out some dead bait. This way we figured we could cover a few different kinds of fishing at the same time. After a couple hours of this it seemed like we were not going to catch anything, so we figured one last try at a big fish. We put out some big live bait on a ledge that goes from about 12 feet to over 40 feet down a straight wall and on an out going current some times we’ll get some big barracudas feeding there. Well thank god that was the case today and we did end up catching a monster barracuda. Thanks for your patience guys and looking forward to fishing with you again soon.

Well on the 13th there was still no current off the coast of South Florida and we needed to find fish; We had Donna, Zack, Jessie, Steve and Jane from some where in the United States but I can’t seem to read their writing, might have something to do with the beer (LOL). This time we had a new plan with this no current stuff. We trolled our way down the reef catching kingfish on the way and we ended up off of Hallandale. Once we got there we dropped some live bait down on a wreck to see what might be hanging around the wrecks. We ended up catching a nice amberjack and a monster barracuda.

Well it’s been a tough week of fishing off the coast of South Florida and we are ready for a change. And on the morning of the 16th we got it. The skies were dark and it was drizzling so putting the kites up was out of the question. So we started out putting out a live bait way back behind the other baits and I would hold that rod up high on the fly bridge to help keep the line off the other lines. So we put that out as Greg started putting out the other baits all of a sudden my live bait started freaking out and their he was a monster sailfish ate the bait and we were connected at least that is what we thought this fish started jumping all over the place and within two min our light wire leader got kinked and broke. RATS but at least we’ve got some current and it looks as if the fish are going to bite. Well after a few choice words we got the baits out. Now remember we could not fly our kite due to the rain so all of our lines were lying in the water close to each other. Well it did not take long till another one of our lines started screaming out and this fish also ate live bait and he was pulling hard and strait down. We were not sure what we had on but it was a real pain between the rain and all the other lines in the water this was no going to be an easy catch. But we did finally catch this 35 pound black fin tuna. We got the fish in the boat and we were trying to get the hook out of its mouth when I seen one of our balloons takes off. And it was on and this one was a lot bigger than the last. We were just getting the rod in the fighting chair when one of the lines crossed the line with the fish on and the cut like hot butter. (RATS RATS RATS) Well I guess that’s why they call it fishing and not catching and at least there was plenty of tuna for all.
Well that same afternoon we had David and his son Mike and daughter Laura from Louisiana. So we went back to the same spot where we had lost the fish earlier that day a see if we could get our revenge. Well it took about two hours of waiting but finally it paid off our deep line bent over like the rod was going to break in two. It took mike about 35 min but he did finally caught it a bull shark about 150 pounds. Thanks for your patience guys and looking forward to seeing you again soon.

I would like to congratulate Captain Mark and my son Luis on the Blue Marlin they caught today. They caught this blue marlin off the coast of South Florida trolling a soft head lure. The fish was caught and released and estimated to be between 120 pounds to 180 pounds. Great job guys.

On the 17th we got lucky we had Michel, Terry, Marty, M-J and Mitchell from Florida and from Chicago and we started out trolling the reef and we did manage to catch a few kingfish. Then we went out to 350 feet of water put out some live bait and then we put down some dead bait. Well it did take a while but it did finally pay off we ended up catching a monster Hammer head Shark. Well it has been a little tough fishing in the pouring rain but I’ve got to give my crew credit they have been catching when a lot of boats have not been catching.

We went deep sea fishing with Kevin his wife Rene and their daughter and son Ryan and Emily on the 21st. They were from West By God Virginia! We started out fishing by one of the ships anchored out in front of Fort Lauderdale and caught some live baitfish. Then we did some trolling down the reef and caught a nice kingfish. But all in all trolling was kind of slow we went to a ship wreck and dropped live bait down about 260 feet and the second it hit the bottom we were hooked up. Kevin reeled this one up it turned out to be a pretty nice amberjack. So we figured if it worked once we’d try it again and sure enough as soon as the bait hit bottom we were hooked up again this one was a little bigger than the first and it ended up also being an amberjack. Well than we decided to put out a couple live baits on the surface and some dead baits down deep and see what we could come up with. We did this for about an hour with out a scare so we wanted to end the trip on a good note. We went in on a ledge and started putting out some live bait but we did not even get the first bait all the way out there and once again we were Hooked Up. Kevin fought this fish for about 15 min and we were right in the middle of the inlet and there was a big ship trying to get in and it was going to cut our fish off. So we had no choice but to lock the reel up and hope for the best. Well the best did not happen we ended up breaking the lieder on the fish but before it broke the fish started jumping all over the place. It was a spinner shark (about 5 feet). It may have gotten away before we had a chance to release him but we sure enjoyed watching him, jump.

Today, the 22nd of June our customers wanted to go dolphin fishing out in the Gulf Stream off the coast of South Florida. Our anglers were no strangers to deep sea fishing they had done quite a bit of fishing off the coast of Miami and off the coast of the Florida Keys. We had Joe, Andrew, Larry and Tim all from down here in South Florida. We explained that we had a west wind and that is usually not very good for dolphin fishing for it tends to blow any debris and or weed line out so we really have a hard time finding something to fish to. We wanted everyone to understand that we would end up either being heroes or zeros then we went for it. Once we got about 7 miles off shore we did find some pretty deep blue water so we started trolling; it only took about 30 minutes of trolling when up pops this sailfish behind our short bait, we did not expect this but we sure were glad to see him. It took Andrew about 1 second to hop in the chair and the fight was on and it took about 15 minutes to catch this very frisky sailfish but Andrew did a great job and we did finally catch it. We had heard of no one catching any dolphin so we started trolling our way back in to the reef; then we saw a big splash but we did not see what the fish was. Then it jumped again it was a huge mako shark what a show this fish jumped about 20 feet out of the water just spinning and doing cartwheel it really was some site to see and he did this 8 more times for us. Well we knew it was one in a million but of course you know we had to throw bait in the water and try our luck. We never did see him again but we sure were glad we got the chance to see it.

On the 24th, we set out for a morning of deep sea fishing with Steve, Roger, Warren and Jeff all from South Florida. We started out trolling down the reef with a couple deep baits and 3 surface baits. We caught 1 nice kingfish and a box of bonitos, and then we went out to about 350 feet of water in search of something big. We waited it out for over an hour with no bites. So we decided to try one more trick up our sleeves we slow trolled some live baits over a deep ledge and it paid off we ended up catching a monster barracuda. The same afternoon we had Jennifer and Michel on board and we tried the same tricks. We trolled down the reef and caught some bonitos, and then once again we went for the big one with no baits so we went back to the same ledge and caught another big barracuda.

We were joined by Harry, Jacob, Mario and Jack, from South Florida on the 27th and they were looking for some good eating fish. We started out trolling the reef and ended up with 1 bonito and a few nice king fish. Next we went off shore looking for dolphin, tolling for over an hour without a bite then finally we found a piece of wood in the water and ended up catching five nice dolphin fish.

Rich and Bob from Boston fished with the Hooked Up crew on the 28th. We started out by trolling the reef and caught a box full of kingfish. Next we went tolling offshore and caught some dolphin fish. It seemed like everything we were trying was working out well for us so we thought we would try our luck and shoot for something real big and luck was on our side. We were flying the kites with live baits in them and we dropped a couple of dead baits deep and it did not take long before the fight was on again with us winning. The catch was a really nice hammerhead shark. Way to close out a great day of fishing guys!

It’s the last day of the month and we were joined for a day of deep sea fishing by John, Gary, Dave and Don all from here in South Florida. We started out trolling the reef and caught plenty of kingfish. Next we slow trolled some live bait to see what we could catch with them and it paid off we ended up with a couple of monster barracudas.

Thanks for fishing with us everyone we look forward to fishing with you again.