Ft. Lauderdale Fishing Charters were producing larger sized Mahi-Mahi yesterday and today. Pictured is John (out of the Dallas, Tx. area) with a very plump fish that measured out @ over 52 inches. Excuse the prominent thumb in the photo please. I took the picture, but really have no idea whose thumb that could be. Lots of fun and laughs today with Jonn and his family of Texans. Seems as though most all Texans are an extremely proud bunch and Miles, their son, attends LSU?? I had to rib John about Miles and LSU (don?t get me wrong here /great school) but the out of state defection from TEXAS?, and he simply said ?because he (Miles)wanted to?. John caught this fish in an area of disturbed water just over three miles offshore. He took a Bonito strip bait fished with small blue / silver plastic head off the long rigger.
We fish a lot of strips as they allow us to troll faster without the bait failing, which can happen with Ballyhoo. When we do locate a fishy looking area we do occasionally add Ballyhoo to the spread and cut the speed. There is no denying a well rigged Ballyhoo works. Often a nice Mahi will charge the shorter baits, especially if a teaser is running somewhere closely ahead of that bait. On occasion they can be fickle and turn down the trolled baits, but that last bait passing by a he fades out of the spread can often draw the strike. If they do turn down that last bait on the way out when we are on the troll a quick turn toward the fish with the boat and a cast with a live bait works more often than not. This was our best fish for the two days but we did catch other nice ones. Yesterday we found the larger Mahi on a very obvious color change that snaked around from 350 to 500 feet of water, getting further offshore as in moved to the north. Not just disturbed water there, but a definite and obvious edge. Beautiful morning today in the low 80s.
