South Florida Fishing Report - Big Mahi Are Here!

I played hooky from work yesterday and took a quick fishing trip out of Haulover with my Dad. The weather was great, seas were calm, and the fish were ready to bite. Florida Sportsman's forum (http://outdoorsbest.zeroforum.com/zeroforum?id=106) had tons of large dolphin (mahi mahi, dorado) catch reports from last weekend. I wanted to get my shot.

We trolled the first gulfstream edge (500ft water) for a little over an hour with no action. We headed east to find some birds or flotsam. We found another current edge about 11 miles off in 1050ft of water. Almost as soon as we turned north on it, the Penn International 20 with a 2 ounce blue and while seawitch and ballyhoo combo got nailed. This huge dolphin comes flying out of the water and we knew we were in for a great fight!

I set the hook, and my Dad proceeded to fight the fish for the first 30 minutes. We cleared all the lines and took our time. I took over for the final few minutes after Dad wore out the fish and he took the gaff shot! The mahi weighed in at just over 41 pounds and is one of the biggest ever caught on my boat. Here are a few pictures:


We ended up catching another 6 fish or so. We only kept two more and let the little guys go for another day. While filleting the big boy, I found a fresh 7/0 hook with a broken eye. Someone else probably had this guy hooked up over the weekend and didn't know how they lost him.