Great Day For Leo And His Crew

Our friend Leo chartered us for a full day with some of his friends and we were excited about the possibilities!  Leo likes to get an early start so we were the first boat out!  The weather was beautiful as we ran to the bait spot.  Being the first boat to the bait patch is always nice and in short order we had what we needed for the day.  With a baitwell full of frisky live baits the L&H headed offshore to the gulf stream, armed and dangerous!  Just a couple miles inshore, of the spot we were planning on starting at, I spotted some birds on the horizon!   As we got closer, I could see a frigate and a few terns working over some fish!  "This is convenient" I thought to myself as I climbed the tuna tower to get a better look!  As the boat slowed down, I could see a nice school of hungry mahi swimming on the surface!  The crew sprang into action and soon there were colorful mahi being hooked up left and right!  As more and more fish showed up, it seemed like the perfect time for Leo to try his luck with the fly rod.  Leo made a great cast and within seconds a nice size mahi raced in and devoured the fly!  After some great angling by Leo, and a lot of maneuvering around other hooked fish, he brought his mahi to gaff!  We stayed in the school for a while and boated a bunch of mahi including several on fly!  With most of the other boats still scrambling for bait, we were in the meat and off to a great start!  Our team continued to pick away at mahi all morning as the L&H worked to the south.  Just before noon I spotted a piece of debris off in the distance.  As we got closer, I could see plenty of mahi and a cobia swimming by the floater.  Leo quickly hooked the cobia and shortly thereafter boated a nice triple tail!  Leo and the crew stayed busy with mahi and also caught a bunch of black jacks for good measure!  With a bunch of mahi and black jacks in our icy hold, it was time to switch gears and do some bottom fishing.  The boys got the rigs ready and when we made it to the spot, the lines went out immediately.  As soon as they hit the bottom, we were bit immediately!  Soon, the brilliantly colored rose fish were coming over the rail at a feverish pace!  The crew worked hard to keep the rigs going in and out and in no time at all there were several dozen rosefish in the box!  With a bunch of fish to clean and pictures to take, everyone agreed it would be a good idea to head in a little early!  It was a great day for Leo and his crew aboard the L&H and everyone went home a little sore from catching fish as well as big bags of fillets for dinner!

Great Day For Newman Family

We had our friends, the Newman family, out for a full day of fun filled charter fishing with us on our charter boat, the L&H.  Our good buddy, Trevor, was joined by his father and brothers for what would turn out to be an action packed day of fishing out of Key Biscayne!  With an early start, our team was able to be the first ones to the bait spot and were thus rewarded with excellent bait fishing!  It was just about as good as it gets and in no time there were a couple hundred frisky live baits swimming in the L&H's large circulating bait well.  I pointed the boat south to where the best fishing had been the past few days.  When we reached the area, everyone was excited to see great conditions (beautiful blue water and strong north current).  It did not take long to start getting bites after the kites went out.  First a sailfish then a couple mahis and things were looking good!  As we battled the second sailfish of the day, I saw another fish grab the left short kite bait.  None of us on board were sure what we had, but all of us knew it was a nice fish.  The Newman brothers did great battling the two fish.  When the first end of our double came up, I could see that it was a real nice wahoo!  My son James reached out and gaffed the tasty wahoo and muscled it to the fish box!  Our efforts were then switched to the angry sailfish.  Again we were able to seal the deal and before long released the powerful billfish to fight another day!  After our double, the boys quickly reset and all the baits were back in the water.  From my perch in the tower I could see a frigate bird wheeling and diving several hundred yards offshore.  It was time to get out there and find out what the bird was looking at.  Before long, I had Miami's best charter boat in perfect position to intercept the migrating gamefish!  Seconds later I spotted a nice mahi, then another and another and another.  They were hungry, eating everything, and there were a lot of them!  Like a well oiled machine, our team sprung into action and began firing out more baits on our custom leeward rods and fin-nor spinning reels!  From my view in the tuna tower, high above the action, it was a beautiful sight to behold.  Everyone working together, hooking up and boating the nice size mahis, and repeating the process over and over.  In short order the guys had landed at least twenty fish all of them nice size!  It was not yet lunch time and the days catch was looking very good!  As we drifted north, the Newman family continued to catch fish and stay busy.  More mahi, a couple nice kingfish, a cobia and another sailfish were added to the tally and there were a couple mystery fish, we hooked on the kite that were eaten by the ravenous bull sharks!  By early afternoon, our anglers were tired from reeling in fish and decided to head in a little bit early.  I suggested we give it five more minutes.  Just then another big sailfish grabbed the left short kite bait and we were once again hooked up!  This one was Trevor's fish and he did a great job working the magnificent sail to the boat for a clean, healthy release!  It was a great ending to a great day of fishing with our friends the Newman family!

Pompano Rodeo

For the past twenty plus years I have enjoyed fishing the Pompano Beach Fishing Rodeo. It is a fun, family oriented tournament with many ways to win. This year the fishing was spectacular. We always fish on the Frick and Frack which is the 27 conch that I own with my brother Fred. Our team consisted of my wife Debbi, son James, daughter Laurel, long time fishing buddy Mike Welter, my mate Greg Braswell and his brother Chris. It was windy and rough and the fish were biting. This tournament does not place a limit on the number of lines you can fish so we had fourteen or fifteen baits out at all times and everyone on our boat was busy from start to finish both days. At the end of day one we weighed our limit of kingfish and tuna and Debbi added a nice cobia to give us 225 pounds with nine fish and put us in first place, giving us the daily! The second day was nearly as good as we again weighed our limit of kings, three tuna and James added a nice dolphin for good measure. It was good enough for second place overall in the tournament and the second place daily for the final day. The highlight of the tournament for me was the success my children Laurel and James had. Laurel won first place in the small fry division (kids 10 and under) and it was one of the greatest moments of my life watching her face light up as they called her to accept her first place tropy!!! James, as usual made his father proud, by winning the junior division (kids 11-16) by a landslide. Not only did he dominate the juniors, James was named second place angler in the entire tournament beating out nearly four hundred other anglers most of them grown men and women. We also won top family and Debbi and I were named top husband and wife. It was truly a successful tournament for us and one that I am very proud of! I would like to give a special thanks to Greg, Mike, and Chris for all of their hard work and without them none of this would have been possible.

Lucky Max

Max Puyanic has been fishing with me on the L&H for over fifteen years and is always very lucky. Today was no exception. On the way to the bait patch I spotted one of the most beautiful sights any captain could hope to see, a huge school of cobias over the white sand! Wes did a great job shifting gears from getting ready to catch bait to crushing cobias. Max was in Austrailia for a few months and on his first day back on the L&H he never missed a beat. In a matter of seconds Max, his guest for the day Jim, and Wes were all fishting fish 40 to 50 pounds. Our team had to work quick because the school was moving offshore and it would be impossible to stay with them once they got over the edge. In a span of twenty minutes our cobia killers landed 15 fish keeping our limit and releasing the rest to fight another day. It was an awsome sight to behold from my perch in the tower, and all I could do was smile and shout praise to the team as everything went smooth as I could ever hope. After the L&H finished with the cobia school we moved offshore and caught a couple nice tuna, a few bonitas and two big cudas. We came in early on a half day with everyone sporting big smiles as we pulled into the dock with a boxful of fish!