08-12-2002, 10:38 PM
Our goal for today was to catch kingfish, bonito, and barracuda for Eileen's grand daughter, Tiffany. Catching bait was a three step process. We started at Haulover Inlet and caught a few pilchards, sardines, and herring. Next it was to the north where there was loads of small baits. Finally, we ran back to just south of the inlet and capped off the live well with large pilchards and herring. A quick run out to 190', 2 flatline baits and one on the downrigger 60' down. In less than 5 minutes, the downrigger and a flatline hooked up to a kingfish. The flatline fish bit through the mono leader and the back third of the other fish got eaten by a large barracuda. While all this was taking place, a sailfish chased the other flatline and managed to knock it off the hook. The sail chased the bare hook to the boat and disappeared before another bait could be put out. Continuing the drift, we had action on the downrigger again, however the fish failed to hook up. Back out to 200' and another sailfish attempted to eat our pilchard. It finally dropped the bait and moved on. The next move was out to 450' amongst some scattered grass. No action out there, so we ran south to the Twin Towers area and started in 220'. At 180', the downrigger popped into action again with another kingfish. At 125', the downrigger put us on a bonito and both flatlines were cut off. The bonito had a buddy and Fred made quick work of it. Time to barracuda fish. We caught one and had several others put on a great show of jumping and running before throwing the hook. With our mission accomplished we ran back to Spinnaker Marina and kingfish steaks were on everyone's mind.<br><br>The buzz in the South Florida Area is that on Sunday lots of dolphin finally moved into the area. Several boats ran offshore looking for them today (Monday) and I heard reports from a few to doing real good. With these encouraging reports, at least for now, the success rate for dolphin fishing has greatly improved.<br><br>Captain Dave Kostyo<br>Knot Nancy Fishing Charters<br>305 620-5896 Charter<br>305 732-2628 Beeper<br>www.rnfl.com/knotnancy<br>nkostyo@bellsouth.net<br><br>