fish report

FISHING FORECAST Fishing heating up in the Gulf Stream

With the winter doldrums obviously bowing out and the spring fishing season already blooming, action is continuing to show signs of improvement with the blue waters of Gulf Stream areas climbing into the spotlight.

This week’s accounts of who has been where to find the action and what is being caught continues to be on the brief side, with two reports coming from the offshore scene and one from inshore.

And in the hook-up, release and harvest column, the blue water action is swiftly coming alive with white marlin, bonita, wahoo, mahi, tuna and a mix of bottom fish on the list, and the inshore report is pointing to sheepshead and red drum.

First offshore report

Our first report came from Capt. Bailey Scarboro, who last Thursday forwarded a report from the previous Sunday when he, T. Baird, Ben Liipfert and Carly Hayes were fishing aboard the “Big Rigger” and ended up the day with quite a mix of action.

He opened by saying they were fishing the Gulf Stream and caught their first mahi of the season, but also hooked and released a white marlin.

Caught tons of bonita and a nice mixed bag of bottom fish, he wrote in an email, taking note also of catching big triggerfish, b-liners and black sea bass.

Along with the action, Capt. Bailey said the area they fished was inside 200-foot depth all day, the water temp at the “ledge” was 70 degrees, and that large amounts of baitfish were in the area.

Too big to box

Our other report from the same general area came from Capt. Chris Page, whose sons Zane and Brendin (both with captain’s credentials) and Zack, along with friends Johnny Gold and Chris Stracuzza, last weekend found the wahoo bite so good they were forced to head back to port sooner than planned in order to preserve their catch. The fish were so big there wasn’t any room left in the fish box to handle them.

According to Capt. Chris, who was unable to join them but forwarded the details, what started as plans to fish a current wahoo tournament with another friend but canceled due to the past weekend’s weather predictions, ended up with a regrouping, with the Pages launching their own boat at Bell’s Landing at midnight Friday with plans to be fishing at daybreak.

By daybreak, they already were fishing the South Ledge waters, trolling and picking up a single blackfin tuna.



Triple Ledge action

“With several boats working the South Ledge, they decided to work their way north,” Capt. Chris wrote in an email, adding the group picked up a pair of nice mahi and another tuna as they headed toward the area known as the Triple Ledge.

It was Zane who was the first to hook and bring to gaff the first wahoo, which weighed in at 50 pounds. Then the action really heated up.

Retracing the same area where the first wahoo was taken, lines were out again and two lines went off simultaneously, the fish moving so fast they stripped half the line of the Shimano 50’s on the first runs.

At first, the guys thought it was one fish that ate two baits, but it soon became obvious there were two fish on as they started to swim in opposite directions, he continued, saying Chris Stracuzza, who had never caught a wahoo, grabbed the rod closest to him and Brendin took the other  both fish still taking line.

With Zane now working the boat and some teamwork when at one point the lines became crossed, it was Chris’s fish that was first brought to the boat  twice before it was finally double-gaffed to bring it aboard.

This was by far the biggest wahoo brought onto the boat, but they still had another big fish on the line that was getting closer to the boat. Zane put on auto-pilot and grabbed the leader of the second fish. Within seconds the fish was gaffed and hauled over the side as well.” Capt. Chris said.


One of the goals of the Page teams has been to land a wahoo weighing in at triple figures, and the one landed by Chris was close. Had there been some certified scales available when the wahoo was first landed, it might have happened.

Once the two big wahoo were on board, he went on to say the obviously very excited group quickly realized they had two fish too large to fit in fish box, now already holding the first wahoo along with the two mahi and two tuna.

A fish bag was pulled out and that also was too small to hold them, so the group improvised by adding a sleeping bag to make up the difference and covering it all with bags of ice.

All of this took place before noon, and with no room for more, they quickly headed home.

The three wahoo weighed in at 97, 76 and 56 pounds, while the bull mahi tipped the scales at 32 and the other mahi along with the two tuna each neared 20.

Since the weight of the largest could not be certified until this past Sunday, 24 hours after first caught, there is a good chance it would have reached or even surpassed the triple-digit goal.

Sheepshead and reds

Our single inshore report covering both red drum and sheepshead came from David Wood, who along with his wife Sarah this past weekend went to one of their favorite South Carolina creeks.

Their first target fish was sheepshead, and David said in an email it was a good choice  the sheephead apparently in a biting mood.

We boated an easy 40 on this trip,” he opened, adding that while the bite was aggressive, there were a lot of throw-backs, many a half- to a quarter-inch short of the S.C. minimum catch length of 14 inches.

Adding that they both quickly landed their limit of sheepshead and ran out of fiddler crabs, they turned their attention to red drum.

Wow! I have never seen them thicker. We landed our Carolina limit of six in 10 minutes and culled fish after that  A rough guess would put the number legal slot reds caught between 15 and 20 with a few short thrown in

When the day was over, we bagged a nice mess of eight sheepshead and six solid reds. Another good day, and with the warmer temps I’m sure it will only get better