Tom Mahoney from Hayward WI, Max Miller from Blaine MN, Mary and Mike DeWitte from Delano MN
Captain’s Blog – February 9, 2010 – Marathon Florida Keys – Another group of Minnesotans – plus a Wisconsoner – escaped the cold up north with a trip to the Keys and included a day of fishing with me.
One of the great aspects – and there are many – of fishing in the Middle Florida Keys is we have venues to suit just about any and all weather conditions. On this day we had strong southerly winds and six-foot seas Oceanside, so I took the group to the calm bay side.
We started around the banks and fished until the tide quit. We caught large, 16-18 inch, mangrove snapper and threw back many in the 12-14 inch class. When we lost the tide, I moved further offshore – about seven miles – to get in on the red-hot Spanish mackerel action, and we were not disappointed. We caught a bunch and kept six. My anglers also had fun with the bluefish, which always give a good fight, and I kept a few to use as shark bait.
Once they had their fill of mackerel fishing and I knew the tide would be moving again, we ran back to the starting spot and caught a couple more keeper snapper before calling it a day. They had plenty of fish to feed their group of eight at Castaway that night.
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