When thin sheets of ice began to appear on the boats in the morning, we knew it was time for the Key West birds to fly South for the winter. We had a great season in Cape Cod this past year with all of the pleasures New England has to offer. The begining of the season started off casting jigs and live bait at schools of small Bluefin tuna weighing between 75lbs and 300lbs. Each and every customer had their work cut out for them. Some battles lasting up to two hours. We used a combination of tackle between Daiwa's Saltiga spinning reels for casting freestyle jigs and slugos on 80lb. braid and Daiwa's Sealine conventional reels for live pogies on the kites. It is an incredible sight to see these little Giants come up to the surface and inhale a live bait right in front of your eyes. In between the Bluefin tuna chaos we kept busy on a daily basis with an incredible Striped Bass fishery with Stripers averaging weights of over 30lbs. Codfish, a little later in the season, was as easy as catching pin fish on the grassy flats of the Florida Keys. When we were in the right areas sometimes before the jig hit the bottom we were hooking Codfish on every drop whether you meant to or not. A couple times we were reeling up Codfish off the bottom and were getting eaten by Giant Bluefin tuna and spooled within seconds. The whales this season were quite the sight when they would breach, sometimes 20 yards from the boat, we have some great video of that. On one particular day, we were fishing in 20 ft. seas and watched these whales jumping out of the tops of the waves. As the wave would sweep past, these adult humpback whales would clear the water by over 20 ft. before they crashed back into the trough. It was a sight we will never forget as long as we live. The end of the season finished with an incredible Giant Bluefin bite East of Cape Cod. We had opportunities and hooked one or more Giants almost every day, and landed Giants tipping the scales at not quite 900lbs. Although we didn't see any Great Whites this year personally, the beaches of Chatham were closed all season because of so many Great White sightings around the large seal population on Monomoy Island. We did have on one occasion about a 600lb. Mako shark that came up to the boat looking for a smaller tuna that we had hanging overboard. My mate was ready with the harpoon in case we had to defend our catch but the shark may have got spooked as we were fighting another Bluefin tuna at the time, revving the engines to maneuver the boat. After all this excitement it was time to pony up and get back on I-95 Southbound.
Back in Key West, we barely had time to clean the bugs off the windshield and get the tuna tackle out of the boat before our first charters. Alot of the charter captains here in Key West have been complaining about how slow it has been so we decided to head West to the Dry Tortugas. What a great day of fishing it was with Mutton Snapper averaging over 18lbs. and double header Black Groupers over 35lbs. By the end of the day we had a fantastic catch of over 350lbs. of the best seafood Key West has to offer. Each and every day since has been no different except for a bad stretch of 35 to 40mph winds out of the East and Southeast which didn't matter to me because I was in the hospital for an appendectomy. Some would disagree, but I think I tend to have perfect timing for these things. I try to look on the bright side of things. Anyways, it is great to be back here in paradise where the food is great and the fishing is better. Capt. Billy Delph
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