It’s November and the water is still cooling down and the fishing is getting hotter! With our winter time pelagic fish moving in you get a great mix of fish.
Offshore: Time to Checkout the Wahoo
There’s still some dolphin out there to be caught with some nice size to them. It’s not like the summertime where you get boatloads of fish around the boat, but you can still get enough for quite a few dinners.
While you’re offshore fishing this time of the year it’s also a great idea to have lines out for wahoo.
This is the time of the year where the wahoo and sailfish start showing up in great numbers. When a wahoo hits your bait there would be no doubt what has got your bait in his mouth.
When the rod folds in half in the drag is screaming and doesn’t stop, you will know that as a wahoo.
A wahoo can easily strip off 200 to 300 yards of line in a single run. So you better have your cardio in the right order to battle one of these fish. The waters off the Florida Keys can easily produce wahoo of up to around 80 to 90 pounds. The average wahoo is around 30 pounds which will still give you a run for your money.
Of course anytime you’re offshore you always need to keep a lookout for frigate birds and other birds working the surface, catching bait that the predator fish below have driven out of the water to escape. It may be tuna, dolphin, wahoo, or even a sailfish.
That’s why it’s so important to be rigged and ready for any type of fish you may encounter.
The Deep Wrecks
The deeper wrecks are still producing plenty of jacks and sharks. From the deep wrecks into the reef, the king mackerel or king fish has shown up in large numbers, with some smoker kings up to around 35 pounds.
These fish are great fight and usually not as hard to catch as some other fish. If they are there, then they are eating and they can be caught trolling, jigging, drifting with live bait or dead bait.
While king fish has a much stronger taste it is extremely high in omega-3’s which is very healthy for you.
The Reef: Far Out & Big Fish
The yellowtail snapper is still out deep. Big flag yellowtail can fill a cooler very fast and provide meals for months.
On one particular trip this month we were able to catch a 14 pound and a 15 pound mutton snapper on yellowtail baits and rods. Let me tell you, they gave my fisherman a run for their lives.
Also sitting there while fishing for yellowtail snapper, we were also catching kingfish, grouper, big rainbow runners and monster blue runners.
Although you may not be excited to catch a big blue runner while trying to fill the cooler with food, that big blue runner can turn into a big fish to put in the cooler that you may have never even thought of.
The Gulf Fishing is On Fire!
With every passing day, the gulf wrecks are getting even hotter. More and more cobia are showing up every day along with more and more African pompano than we have ever seen here in the Florida Keys. The population of African pompano is increasing in leaps and bounds which is great because they’re awesome to catch any even better to eat.
The grouper this month must know that the end of their season starting January 1 is coming close. The grouper has been (on the hook). Almost every trip this month we have limited out on our gag grouper with plenty of reds adding to our limits.
The big boy breeder mangrove snapper or have made their way to most of the wrecks in the Gulf and I have been finding them.
Let me tell you there’s nothing like sitting there fishing and seeing a whole school of cobia come up to the surface – then, when you throw a live bait or jig at them, you hook up almost instantly – there’s really nothing like it. When they hit the hook , There’s no doubt that you’re ready to put up a fight. To me, cobia is one of the most fun fish that we target and put in the cooler.
