December Fishing Report

December 1, 2, 3, 2012

The beginning of December has brought in some great kitefishing weather, with east to southeast winds just strong enough to keep the kites in the air. We fly specially designed kites from the boat, attach our fishing lines to the kite line with release clips, and suspend live baits on the fishing lines. This type of fishing targets surface predators like billfish, wahoo, and mahi-mahi. It’s always exciting to see these big fish come up and snap the bait off, right on the surface! It is the most productive type of live bait fishing around this time of year.

A couple of our good longtime clients, Mike and Kate, joined us on December 3^rd, along with their friend Billy, a gentleman in his mid-eighties from Massachusetts. Mike and Kate have been fishing with us for more than nine years, and we were glad to have them back aboard. We started the morning out kitefishing, and it was a little slow with only two mahi-mahi taken off the kites. We hung in there with the kites though, for Mike’s sake, and finally a sailfish ate one of the live baits just five feet from the boat! It was a spectacular sight.

Kate had jumped in the fighting chair and was battling the sailfish with Billy watching the action from the side of the cockpit. The sailfish was jumping all over and I was backing up on the fish with the boat in reverse. Somehow Billy fell overboard during the action and we had to quickly fish Billy out of the water. Even with a man overboard drill we were able to land that sailfish! I told Billy that if he comes back out with us I’ll be seat belting him in the chair for safekeeping. What a day!