Good Fall Dolphin Fishing

We had Silveo Leon aboard the L&H for what would be a great day of fishing!  Silveo was entertaining clients and told us he was happy to try anything as long as his customers were happy at the end of the trip!  After catching bait, our plan was to head to the gulf stream and see what we could find.  Before long, Jim found some birds and we headed that way.  When reaching the birds, there was a bunch of dolphin but all to small to keep.  The L&H headed further offshore and before long came across a nice current edge.  Only a few minutes after riding down the edge, two nice mahi came racing in on our teasers!  Jim got two baits out right away and hooked up both fish!  We now were hooked up to a pair of twenty plus pound dolphin!  I maneuvered the L&H close to the stubborn mahi and Jim made two perfect gaff shots and put the fish in our icy hold!  As soon as I started going again, I saw something busting in the sea weed several hundred yards away.  When we got to the area, there was a nice school of mahi slowly swimming to the south.  Jim did a great job getting the customers in a rhythm  and before long they were all hooking fish as fast as the line went out!  The fish were cooperating and in short order our team had boated thirty keepers!  Everyone was very happy and went in the cabin to refresh in the cold air conditioning!  Knowing that we needed less than twenty fish to reach our limit, I continued down the mahi highway.  Less than a mile away, I spotted another big school of nice sized dolphin and they were hungry!  By now, our team had the drill down and they secured the rest of the fish we needed to get our limit in no time at all!!  All of the guys were happy with our success and were happy to call it a day!  Back at the dock we took a few photos and cut up a bunch of fish for everyone!  It was another great day on the L&H with a happy crew and happy customers!!

Fantastic Fall Fishing

Our good friend and long time customer, Leo Rodriguez, joined us for what would be a fantastic day of fishing.  Leo was accompanied by a couple co-workers and they were looking forward to getting some action as well as bringing home some fresh fish for dinner.  The bait fishing was very good and before long the L&H was headed offshore to see what we could find.  Right away, the guys caught a couple nice blackfin tuna on artificial lures and I knew we were headed in the right direction.  A short time later, Travis spotted a frigate bird a few miles away and I sped up a little bit to close the gap between us and the bird.  As we approached the frigate, we got attacked!  Every line we had out got bit and we now had more fish on than we had anglers (always a good problem to have)!  Minutes later, nice size tuna were coming over the rail!  We had found a big school of tuna, but at the time I did not know how big the school would turn out to be!  After boating all the fish we had on, I pushed the throttles up and tried to catch back up to the school.  Jim and Trav quickly reset the lines and before we got to the heart of the school, every rod was hooked up again!  This time, I left my perch in the tower and climbed down the ladder to the cockpit to join the fun.  I grabbed a live bait and tossed it out to the side and in seconds a tuna ate it.  Jim and Trav followed suit and we began hooking tuna (a mix of blackfin and skipjack) as fast as the bait hit the water!  The fish we literally swimming all around the boat!  We caught them on everything we used and Leo went to the bow and began hooking up on his fly rod!  For what seemed like an eternity, the school of hungry tuna stayed with the L&H as we drifted along with the current.  Finally, by looking at the amount of fish in our icy hold I knew we had more than enough fish for everyone and we had to stop catching them!  We caught so many tuna in such a short period of time that I decided to break the cardinal rule in fishing...never leave fish to find fish!  This, however, was an exception because we had A LOT of tuna and Leo wanted to try for some mahi!  Several miles further offshore I spotted a nice weed line.  Only minutes after reaching the possible mahi highway we found a nice school of fish!  By now the guys had recovered from the tuna blitz and were rested up enough to go back to work on the mahis!   They were nice size mahi mahi and again we had more fish hooked up than we had anglers to reel them in.  Everyone did great and now the fishbox was reaching capacity.  After finishing the mahi mahi school we resumed our hunt and continued to pick away at fish all afternoon!  Everybody agreed to head in a little early and when we reached the dock, one of the other charter boats had just finished unloading their catch.  With only a few fish for the entire day, Leo told me he did not want to embarrass the other boat, but I told him not to worry and that he should be proud of his catch!!  The boys started throwing the fish on the dock and they just kept coming and coming and coming and coming...  With great teamwork, the best crew around and being ready and prepared for anything, the L&H ended up with fifty-one (51) blackfin and skipjack tuna and a nice bunch of mahi mahi!  We cut up a lot of fish for Leo and his guys and he even took a bunch of tuna to give away to friends!  The fish that were left, my wife canned for us and not a single fish went to waste!  It was a great day for Leo and everyone on the L&H!!!

Max Has His Best Day Ever!!!! 25 Sailfish

Our long time friend, Max Puyanic, has been fishing with me on the L&H for the last fifteen years.  Some years he fishes once a month and some years more than that, so needless to say Max and I have caught A LOT of fish together!  On this day, everything went our way, starting with the bait fishing.  I found a big school of bait and when Jim threw the net, it was so full he could hardly get it in the boat.  There was a small boat fishing and he was not catching any bait, so I pulled over to him and the boys gave him two buckets full of live bait and we were on our way.  The L&H crew always tries to be nice and help others whenever we can as we would like others to treat us the same!  After our good deed for the day we started running to the south.  The conditions were perfect and I was very excited about our chances.  As soon as the very first bait went out it was eaten!  There was a school of ravenous kingfish behind the L&H and in seconds everyone was hooked up.  There were rods bending all over and we had more fish on than fishermen.  Max got the biggest one, a forty pounder and as we were pulling in the last one (to give us our limit) I saw a sailfish free jumping several hundred yards away.  "Back the drag off!!!!" I yelled as I raced the L&H toward the free jumping sail.  When I got close to the spot where the sail last jumped I could not believe what I was looking at.  A pack of at least ten sailfish were tailing down sea!  I was so excited, I started screaming "Ten Fish, Ten Fish!!!"  and Jim and Trav started casting baits!  Seconds later we had eight fish on and even though I could see more sails I had to tell the boys not to hook any more.  With only two anglers and two mates, eight fish was more than we could handle.  Some sails got away and we released a few and a couple fish turned out to be those pesky kings that had beat the sail to the bait.  Nevertheless it was very early in the day and we had already secured our limit of kingfish and a few sail releases.  I ran to the south and put the baits back out and we got three nice dolphin.  I was fishing out deeper because I didn't want to waste all our baits on those kings.  After a while with no bites, I knew the sails were in shallow and that is where we needed to be.  Right away we started getting some sails and kings.  Everyone stayed busy releasing sails and kings and finally around mid day the kings stopped biting.  The sails continued tailing down sea and we kept hooking them.  Just after lunch time, Max released the fifteenth sailfish of the day!  We fished a three mile area all day and just kept running back to the same spot.  The ocean was alive  as I saw a giant bluefin tuna tailing and we had a 150 pound plus yellowfin tail by both short baits with out eating.  By early afternoon we had released twenty-three sailfish and were almost out of bait!  As we put out the last four baits we had I remembered the two buckets full of bait we gave away in the morning.  It was ok, as I was sure the guy on the small boat was happy and catching fish as well.  We soon hooked a double on our last set  and headed for home!  The L&H came backing into the slip with two riggers full of flags and a box full of kingfish and mahi's!   Max was so excited and I was happy for him.  He is a great friend and client and he was rewarded for his loyalty and persistence with his best day ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!