OU – Islamorada Fishing Updates and Information

[OU Sportfishing]

The past few weeks here out of Islamorada have been up and down. First, we start with bait which has been nothing short of difficult at best. Some days we get one throw of the cast net and if you are lucky you get some minnows. Ballyhoo have been way up the line just too far to go on a “maybe”. So most days we have to resort to live shrimp and cut dead baits.

The cold fronts that have been steadily coming through are really making life hard on the reef edge as the water cannot warm up. Reports are that it’s this way up the whole coast of Florida. The water is dirty and green and for the first time in 14 yrs I saw the water turn to mud…it was horrible! Now with that said the fishing has been a lot of work but we do manage to put a pretty good catch together by the end of the day. Yellowtails and Mangrove snappers are okay. We manage to pick away at each stop which is about 6 to 9 spots a day; all shallow water patches. The fun part about it is the Grouper fishing is…well…super! This is very nice to see since it has been closed down until September. Blacks, Reds, and Gags have done a great job of giving the anglers an unreal fight on light tackle. The cero and Spanish mackerels have also provided some good action for us too. They’re mostly biting on the Gotcha’s.

Now the best fishing has been over the last few days. During our present cold front the waters and currents have helped to slowly turn things around. The water began to really clean up and the bites have become somewhat easier. The bait has seemed to find its way back along with some of the deeper bites on the wrecks and fades.

The Sailfish have been very slow but I do feel we are going to get some GREAT tailing conditions real soon, lots of fun and big numbers. The Cobia have really been the most consistent for us, they have been coming down the inside reef edge on rays in big numbers. This has provided us with real good action almost every day! The Cobias love the live Grunts which we catch on the patches. The best part is they are a very hardy bait and easy to keep alive in the bait pens. Finally when the opportunity allows us we have been able to start catching some real nice Amberjacks on the humps and deeper wrecks offshore. The live Bluerunner or Speedos have been best to produce a bite. The Jacks have ranged anywhere from 20 to 75 pounds. A great fight on stand up gear. Not much to report yet on the Black fins. Just a few here and there…it’s coming though! We also have been able to get in a few Swordfish trips on this last Moon and both the That’s Right and Pretty Work had some bites and each was able to get themselves a keeper. The bite overall though was slow on this Moon but perhaps the weather played a role.

The outlook is good though for the upcoming weeks. The weather seems to want to finally break which will help greatly. The signs are all there. All we need are things to start to line up together and we are there!! Just another note for all…the Pretty Work will be in Islamorada year round now!!!! We have also taken the time to attach a Dry Tortugas permit to it so now we are running these trips in June, July and August which are some of the prime months to fish and snorkel in that area!!

Capt.John Oughton
cell 305-481-6527
john@overunderadventures.com

[OU Sportfishing]

Captain John Oughton report that the patch fishing and shallow water fishing is phenomenal! Lots of gag groupers. Bait is difficult, however. The weather has warmed up nicely down here! Yesterday the water was a clean green color and today the wind has picked up so the water mudded up a bit. The yellowtails are biting in deep water. In the "Can" yesterday he was catching King Macks and Cobia. Today they saw some dolphin and got a 60lb white marlin in 120 feet of water! Also biting are blackfins and amberjack...deep dropping.

Here's the audio report!

[OU Sportfishing]

Just catching up over the last week. Here are three audio reports for the last few days. Generally the reef fishing is great reporting catches of muttons, yellowtails, groupers, mackerals, porgies & kingfish.

St. Patty's Day report
March 16 report
March 13 report

[OU Sportfishing]

Great Islamorada Fishing report from yesterday. We had the whole Islamorada fleet out catching everything from blackfin tuna, sailfish, mackerals, dolphin & cobia offshore to mackerals, kingfish & red fish out back. Check out the audio

[OU Sportfishing]

The fishing in Islamorada has been spotty at best. We have had some crazy conditions as of late. The water temps are still down and the clarity is horrible. We did catch a Sailfish this week in water that was so dirty I’m not sure how he found the bait!! Speaking of bait that too has been a struggle still, however, we have managed to get some Cigar minnows once every three days. Ballyhoo has been way up the road in some cleaner waters,…too far for me to go. The live shrimp have helped greatly on the patches with the snappers and smaller mackerels.

We have been doing lots of different types of fishing as of late as it’s becoming that time of the year that the surrounding waters begin to show more signs of life. Both Capt. Jeff and Capt. Clyde have started to run more backcountry trips and finding great catches of Spanish and Cero mackerels, all on light tackle 6lb and 12lb test. Capt Clyde did have some good luck with some clients this week catching these fish on Fly too!! To go with the Mackerels, the Sea Trout and Ladyfish have started to really turn up the action with bites on almost every cast!

Out front I have had some good days and we really aren’t finding it easy but with hard work it has paid off most of the time. There have been a couple of days we had very good King Mackerel fishing all 7 to 10lb’s. A few cobia were caught on Wednesday as a small pocket of some cleaner water showed up on the tide change which allowed the guys to see better and did manage to find a few fish. We have been out at the Hump a couple of days and had little luck. We did manage a few nice Blackfins and several larger Amberjacks. The bites have come on Butterfly jigs and trolling feathers, for the AJ’s larger jigs and Blue runners. The Patch fishing became a little tougher this week. There’s been a lot of pressure so that is to be accepted. However we have managed to get our dinner fish. The hogfish and Porgies really have been biting well too, which are great table fare!

Lastly we have our last front coming in on Monday and we are all hoping for Tailing Conditions. This week should be something special, keeping our figures crossed. I know it has already started in Key West as the guys had up to 20 fish each the last two days so…….. that’s Sailfish plus a good showing of Cobia!

Tight Lines,
Captain John Oughton

[OU Sportfishing]

[OU Sportfishing]

Fresh pics from today's charter...a nice bunch of guys on a bachelor party trip!!! We even had Tom Cruise on board!

[economical auto]

we want to come down and fish in may. what would be the time for fishing with tides and moon phases? we like to fish for mahi.:

[OU Sportfishing]

Islamorada has thawed out and the fish have really made a great showing!! This week has been full of good times and great fishing. Capt. Andrew fished several days this week for me on That’s Right and he was making me look bad as he is a great bottom fisherman and it showed this week. He produced some really nice Cobia! The biggest one might have gone 40 pounds with the others coming in at 20 pounds or so. He anchored up along the reef edge in 50’ of water and found a super bit of Groupers, all released alive and well. The biggest one was pushing 40 pounds; a big Black Grouper along with 6 or 7 more ranging from 10 to 15 pounds…excellent fishing. Also along the bottom the guys found some real nice Mangrove Snappers up to 6 pounds and an assortment of Mutton snappers. They were mostly schoolie size 8 pounders, great eating. The Yellowtail snappers have slowly become very hungry again as the water has warmed up to 73 degrees. It’s still a little dirty but coming along nicely.

Mid week I was able to get my butt back and fished with some buddies that I haven’t fished with in over 10 years, so the pressure was on. We had two pretty good days. We spent one in on the reef edge and picked away at the Porgies and Yellowtails pretty good. We threw back a few Groupers and caught plenty of King Mack’s. The bait, well it’s still a mess! It’s totally different every day so we have mostly been dependant on the Live Shrimp and they have yet to let us down. The best rig for us lately has been a simple old chicken rig…imagine that!  

The next day we loaded up with about 300 Pilchards and off we went to the Hump. Well, it didn’t work out for us well as we would have liked but we managed to chum up a few nice Blackfin Tunas, which we caught both on the jig and live Pilchards. After 7 or 8 drifts, which by the way were very quick ones. There was a little too much current that day so we decided to run out another 10 miles and make a few drifts for a Swordfish. On the second drop we got the bite, however, he won and pulled off…bummer. Now as I was running back up to set up for our third drop we stumbled into nature at its finest! A 50’ Whale Shark feeding on the surface and he was surrounded by 5 to 10 pound Blackfins. Now we all thought we hit the mother load! Funny but we tried every trick in the book and could only trick two or three of those little rascals. Gosh, talk about frustrating! That was making me pull my hair out, but it was a spectacular event to watch that’s for sure.  

This weekend both the That’s Right and Pretty Work fished and it was like Snapper express! My goodness the Yellowtails have gone to chewing, about as good as it can get. Limits in no time at all! Today I had 4 neighbors with me and they were catching those 4 at a time and nice fish…two pounders. The Porgies and Hogfish kept one guy busy all morning so it was pretty funny as he didn’t even have time to get a drink! Capt. Andrew is on That’s Right as I write this and he is doing it again this afternoon, one after another…great stuff. He was off to the Little Hump to catch a few Amberjacks. Capt Clyde on the Pretty Work had a great catch of AJ’s on Saturday, as well as his limit of Yellowtails and some really nice Porgies.

Well, this coming week is another full week so stay tuned as we should have some great things to report. And DON’T FORGET THE PRETTY WORK IS NOW IN THE KEYS ALL YEAR!!

Capt.John Oughton

cell 305-481-6527

john@overunderadventures.com

[OU Sportfishing]

Captain John reports a nice snapper bite yesterday...muttons, yellowtails and mangrove snappers. No Dolphin have showed up as of yet. Expecting those to come in the next couple of weeks. One of our anglers reeled in the first sailfish on the Pretty Work. It was swimming right in the sand. They also boated a couple of nice amberjacks.

Here are the two audio reports from yesterday....
http://www.overundercharters.com/audio/10mar31tr.wav
http://www.overundercharters.com/audio/10mar31tr1.wav