West Palm Beach Fishing Reports

No trolling today, we stayed on the drift and it was action packed the entire trip. Highlight catch of the day was Eric's 17 lb 8 oz bonita on a medium spinning rod and a butterflied grunt. A very impressive catch. The rest of the time the guys were catching pogies, triggerfish, sand tiles, and grunts. Nothing fancy, hi/lo rigs or light jig heads with cut bonita or squid strips but they had a great time.

Decided to switch things up a bit today, we went drift fishing first and then went trolling. The effort paid off big time, we caught flag yellowtail snappers, a juvenile African Pompano, porgies, grunts, released a bull shark, and sand tilefish. On the troll on the way home we picked up a couple of bonita, so the charter was worn out and very happy ! Frozen bait included bonita, sardines, pilchards, squid and crabs, live bait was pilchards and pinfish, everything worked !

Beautiful day out there today, flat calm. We started out live bait drifting for mahi, but caught a bonita out in 400' of water! We saw some big mahi but couldn't get them to bite, they had seen to many boats already. When we went on the troll, we picked up a mahi and two more bonita on skirted strips.

There's a tropical storm up off of Georgia and when it passed it really stirred up the water here. Between the silted up water and lots of sargassum weed, fishing was tough today. John and his crew stuck it out and they were rewarded by a couple of nice fish, a gaffer mahi and a big barracuda. Guess what's for dinner ??

Tough day today, no wind and no current ! Connor had his buddies with him today. I ran the boat out to 230 feet and started a deep drift for tuna. We had one come up early in the drift and swirl just next to the boat, but no takers on our baits. I ran inshore to 80 feet for reef fish, I could read them on the screen, but nobody was feeding ! I think these afternoon thunderstorms have them off their feed. Next i ran back out to 120 feet and finally we started catching some reef fish. A very slow start but a solid finish, I guess that's the best you can hope for with these conditions !

Flat calm today, very little breeze, and hot ! We decided to skip the trolling today and went directly to deep water drifting looking for blackfin tuna and mahi in 320 feet of water. After an hour with no action I was just about to make a move when the bow rod started screaming. About the same time I see a large Sailfish greyhounding on the other side of the boat ! I was able to run up to the bow, bury the rod tip under the surface and clear the line out from the hull. Our angler Jake was in for a battle because I was fishing for blackfin tuna which can be line shy so I lightened up the leader strength to 30 lb fluro, usually for sails I use 50 lb leader. Forty minutes later we had the fish boatside and we were able to tow it behind the boat until it revived and swam away strong. My angler wasn't so lucky, he didn't have any breakfast, got dehydrated during the fight, so we had to head in. He'll know for next time.

Well today was different, Cass and Thomas brought their boys out and we started by trolling offshore for Blackfin Tuna and Mahi. Very slow... one Bonita and one missed bite... Ok, lets try try drifting out din the deep for Blackfin Tuna and Mahi.... Again very slow, no bites ! Now I'm getting antsy, so move the boat inshore and try drifting shallower... Game On ! We started getting bites on the bottom rods, catching sand tiles, porgies and grunts. Then the flat line rods start going off, and we are catching Barracudas, and King Mackerel, along with a couple of mystery bites that bit us off! Slow start but we had a great finish, and I guess that's what really counts.

Allan and son joined us today and the Bonita were jumping in the boat on the troll ! Where did the Mahi go ???

Wylie brought his crew out today, no wind and no current made for a beautiful day, but it was tough fishing ! We stuck it out and picked up some Bonita on the troll, and then we got dinner on the drift, catching some extra large trigger fish.

Today was Travis's 13th birthday so Dad took him fishing, makes sense to me ! On the troll we got a monster big Bonita, and then on the drift he got a real nice King Mackerel. A couple of bottom fish and the trip was complete. Beautiful weather today, this trip was a home run !

Karyn found a rainbow and it wasn't even raining ! Drift and kite fishing today gave us a good time with mahi too !!