Big Yellowtail and King Cero & Spanish Mackerel - Marathon

[Hunter]

I can not get over our good fortune this winter being in the Keys. Anyone familiar with winter fishing in the Keys knows that it blows like an SOB this time of year. Typically you might get 2-3 days of fishing and then it blows for 3-4 days. We have been able to fish almost every day this winter since mid-January. I changed the oil on my Yamaha engine before I left home figuring there was no way I would log 100 hours, so I left everything needed to do an oil change at home. I just clipped 100 hours and have burned almost 500 gallons of gas since arriving. I had to order an oil change kit I really feel for all of my friends and family back in the Balt-Washington area and hope spring arrives soon. In the mean time I will keep putting up some fishing reports and try not to let the haters (Frosty) get to me. By the way....Skip, your creativity with your well-endowed snowman has had members of my family in stitches.

We have done very well out on the reef but today was one of those exceptional days. We caught Spanish, Cero and King Mackerel, Grouper and , best of all, some "Flag" yellowtail snapper. All of the mackerel were 24-30". There was some decent current so our chum was able to move across the reef and attract fish for us. We were using 12 test line (Vanish), 20# fluorocarbon leaders and specially weighted hooks that are designed to keep your shrimp upright as it floats back in your chum slick. We started out in 105' right at the outer edge of the reef but eventually had to move back into 50' as the Mackerel were constantly cutting off our lines and not giving our bait a chance to get back/down to the other fish.

Today was the first day this winter that we had caught any Kings so I elected to keep a 28" fish for the grill and will marinade it in some Mojo tomorrow night; caught a total of 3 Kings. The tuna from 2 days ago went on the grill tonight and was awesome. Another first was finally getting into some bigger yellowtail snapper (Flags). We had a mess of them over 15" and 4 in the 17-18" range; these are beautiful fish. Could have caught more but had more than enough for a group dinner and felt good to leave them biting.





Below is a very nice Spanish Mackerel that was released....



We are now seeing manatee show up every few days as they are drawn to the fresh water coming off of the boat while we are washing it down after fishing. We never get tired of seeing them...