Deep Sea Fishing Holds Summer And Winter Species

Dolphin Fishing The Ultra Grand Slam out of Key West has great luck this week on Dolphin.
Dolphin Fishing

The Ultra Grand Slam out of Key West has great luck this week on Dolphin.

January 21 2015 The conditions are just perfect for the blue water deep sea fishing to be awesome all up and down the Florida Keys. In January we are generally talking about tuna, sailfish and a great kingfish bite up and down the Florida Keys. Well add dolphin, wahoo and a great reef bite to that list and EPIC comes to mind to describe the fishing here.

January typically holds some of our best large Kingfish and mackerel fishing. Right on into the month of February we have a steady flow of the razor toothed missiles flying down the reef making short work of the copious amounts of bait fish that we have here on our reefs in the form of ballyhoo, blue runners and speedos. The species are King mackerel and cero mackerel. Its not uncommon if you spend any time on or near the reef this time of the year to see a mackerel launch itself 15-25 ft in the air in pursuit of a bait fish or even more fun, your trolled or casted bait. There are so many mackerel on the reef right now its hard to imagine life as a baitfish. Not IF you get eaten, but when.

DIY PRO TIP – if you are bringing your own boat down to the keys and want a fun day of easy fishing. Grab some light spin fishing tackle. Find the reef, drift along on the deeper edge from 25 – 130 ft. Go through all your old tackle and find your old casting plugs that have a lip and old banged up rusty hooks. (doesn’t hurt as bad when you lose them). I like to use monofilament leader of about 30lbs to the plug as the mackerel tend to be pretty visual and wire will decrease your hook up ratio. Use light spinning gear 12-20lb test braid or mono and start casting. If you see schools of bait on the reef even better cast right into it. Pull nice and steady do not “work” the plug. WHAM.. you will hook up over and over again and have more fun than you can imagine..

Dolphin in January? YES.. The fleet of sport fishing boats that leave out for fishing daily are catching NICE sized gaffer dolphin regularly. I have heard of dolphin being landed in the 30 lb range and with regular consistency that we can offer dolphin fishing on the charters we are booking every day.

Wahoo,  its a live bait game this time of the year. Hit or miss a nice bonus to your day if you get one. Key West seems to be having the higher probabilities lately that last few weeks.

Blackfin tunas are on most of the humps up and down the Keys. Our charter boats have been able to get people into the Blackfins pretty regularly. Live bait and fast trolling has gotten the Blackfin tunas to eat pretty well.

To top off a great deep sea fishing report lets talk about sailfish. The sailfish bite although not on fire is there to add a mix to the catch. Sailfish this time of the year tend to be our largest fish. Solo cruisers if you will that are looking for an easy meal. Trolling boats are doing really well out of Key West on sailfish.

All in all our deep sea offshore fishing report is a good one this week. A cold front is scheduled to hit the Florida Keys on Saturday afternoon January 24th with cooler temps showing up on Sunday. I don’t feel as though this will hurt many of the species I wrote about in this report for the exception of the dolphin. Dolphin typically don’t like a Northerly wind. But, as soon as that wind clocks back around. Wham! there they are in the 400 – 600 ft range ready to eat and be eaten. Watch your long range extended forecast to see when the winds clock around.

To book a deep sea fishing charter in the Florida Keys, check out our web site at www.fishingfloridakeys.com. There you will find a selection of deep sea fishing boats from Key Largo To Key West that will take you out and show you a great day on the water.

About Capt. Steven Lamp
Veteran Key West Fishing guide Capt. Steven Lamp has been fishing the waters of the Florida Keys professionally since 1993. Specializing in Flats, Backcountry, Fly Fishing, Wrecks, Reef and Offshore fishing in Key West, Florida. Capt. Steven is also the founder and director of Dream Catcher Charters located in Key West, Florida.