60 pound July Cobia

Congratulations captain Ron howell on the Islamorada Lady II caught this 60lb Cobia on half day trip today. It was one of two Cobias on the dock here at Robbies. The second was a 18 pounder caught by Capt Saba on the "Dirty Boat"

WINNERS OF THE LADIES DOLPHIN TOURNAMENT

Way to go Brian cone and team Contagious. 1st place in the Islamorada Ladies Dolphin Tournament. this monster weighed in at 49.7 pounds and was caught by Stacy Szmanski.

Dolphins

Let me introduce you to 8 yr old Josh Downtain from Raleigh North Carolina, and his grandfather Doug Davis of Johnson City Tennessee.  Josh has become an avid fisherman with the help of his grandfather. He went offshore twice in the past week on our 47’ Hatteras The Islamorada lady II and caught 10 Mahi Mahi all by himself. He is pictured above with the largest of the catch. That alone would be a great trip for me but that’s not all.

On Thursday he went tarpon fishing with Captain Chris King on his 21’ mako. Josh caught nurse sharks, and a tarpon bigger than he is!!!!

Josh and his grandfather fish together often and he has caught redfish, brook trout, and red and black drum.  He said the favorite thing about fishing in the Florida Keys is “seeing all the really big fish”. His favorite fishing of the trip was going offshore.

May reports and June predictions

Wow! Are the yellowtails ever here!  Mainly at night, but the bite is out of this world!  In the patch reefs we are catching them up to a pound and a half, but out on the wrecks we are getting them up to 4 pounds on a consistent basis.  And to make matters even better underneath the tails on the bottom are lane snappers, muttons and porgies.  Don’t worry too much about the bait for the tails.  It’s more about the tackle you fish with.  You want a spinning rod with 10 to 20 pound test MONO on it and a small jig from 1/32 ounce to 1/8th ounce.  That’s it, you don’t need anything more or less than that.
The mutton bite is on too. On a recent private charter we came up with 9 muttons up to 16 pounds.  We fished nothing but deep wrecks with fresh and live bait.
 
Groupers have been a bit slow.  Now that the water is warming up they are getting pretty hard to come by.
The hot scene offshore is dolphin.  They are biting like crazy everywhere outside of 300 feet of water.  I haven’t seen the Islamorada Lady come in with a catch that was anything less than awesome in weeks!  They have mainly been catching dolphin, but tunas and wahoos have made their way into the box also.
Tarpon is also red hot.  The charter boats out of Robbie’s are getting them on a nightly basis.

 As for predictions, I would expect to see the tails and muttons bite like crazy for the next couple months.   The mangroves will start really chewing at night after the full moon in June  and July, while the dolphin will remain hot until late August.  If you are coming to fish the Capt. Michael party boat make sure you bring your light spinning gear for the yellowtails!

Cubera Snapper on the Captain Michael

Mike and Kelly caught this nice Cubera snapper last week on THE CAPTAIN MICHAEL. Night fishing is really heating up. Come on down and see what you can catch!!   GREAT FISH KELLY

Thats what I call a grouper

Congratulations to Skye Stranley of BLUE HEAVEN CHATERS with this 64 lb black Grouper

The party  boat has again brought in a fine catch for this young man from palm beach county. As he was pulling in a grunt this monster took the bait and the fight was on.