Capt Mo's Fishing Reports: May 2024

Thursday, May 30, 2024

What a way to end the month! May 24-31, 2024

What a way to end the month but it was not all good news at first. My Saturday charter was with regular local client Barry and we were fishing out of Key Biscayne on Memorial Day weekend. Not good. But, he was there for a few nights and couldn't drive south so the plan was to meet him there and well that's when things went sideways. With HUGE amounts of boat traffic at the marina, I arrived at 6:45AM only to find out the marina was already full and closed. What?! I had to tell Barry to reschedule and I drove an hour and a half back home. Ouch! My Sunday trip was also with a regular long time client, Alex and out of the same marina in Key Biscayne. This time we started at 6:30AM and I launched out of Homestead at 5:30AM and ran by boat an hour north to Key Biscayne. Everything went well after that but the marinas were already 3/4 full by 5:30Am. Crazy! Oh, back to fishing. It was slow overall but Alex hooked and lost a tarpon and his buddy Kai caught a bunch of snappers and jacks. I took Monday off and declined a few trips, my mental health s more important. However, I had long time client Ken on board out of Homestead with his kids Gianna and Haram. He wanted to make sure they caught a bunch of fish regardless of size so the kids caught endless snappers until they got bored. At this point we target bonefish and were able to hook two and land one, nice! My last trip of the month was Chris and his son Luke targeting bonefish. It was on fire! We had slick calm conditions, falling tide and great moon phase. The end result was tons of shots at schools of bonefish coming in all directions. We hooked four and landed two. Not great odds but it was one of those mornings where landing bonefish was almost guaranteed. That's what early morning bone fishing is like in the summer and it didn't disappoint.

Capt. Mo Estevez

786-853-1409

www.MiamiBonefishing.com

Follow me on Instagram @MiamiBonefishing

Saturday, May 25, 2024

Long Report May 1-23, 2024

What's up everyone? It's been a busy month so far so here is a catch up report of what's been going on in Miami/Biscayne Bay. The first week of May started the way the April ended, on fire! Joel and Paul were with me for the last day of our trip and we got into some super shallow, super calm big tailing bonefish action that had us going 3 for 4 on these big fish and had plenty more shots. This was after fishing the finger channels and having a blast catching a variety of snappers and jacks in order to mix things up. The following day I had Mark on board and we did well on bonefish again, in really calm conditions which is typical of May in Miami. After a few days off and a mini well needed vacation I was back on the water with Brett and Kris out of the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo. these guys were great and a ton of fun to fish with. They caught a bunch of jacks, sight fished a few lemon sharks and we wrapped it up hooking 7 bonefish and landing 6. What a day! The following day I fleshed with Wes and he wanted to focus on snook since they don't have snook in Texas. We got an early 6AM start and tossed top water lures for snook. They were there and he caught a few nice fish before the trip ended at 10AM.

The next day I fished with local client Barry and we focused on snook (who were MIA...go figure!) so we turned out attention to bonefish. The flats were dead but at a certain point in the tide the bonefish went crazy and a school of about 100 fish were mudding. It was an easy shot and Barry capitalized by landing a bonefish out of the school and ending what would have been a skunk trip.

With a slow down in fishing I was concerned taking Neil and his wife out in the morning for bonefish but it worked out and there were plenty of smaller fish around and Neil was able to land his first bonefish. The afternoon trip was with long time client Austin and it was a dud, the fishing was dead and only a few blow ups from snook on top water.

Saturday found me fishing with Abe armed with a fly rod for bonefish. Once again the fishing was a bit slow for bonefish so we turned out attention to permit and found one mudding and then several singles and doubles. Abe had some shots but permit are permit. At the right time in the tide I took him where I took Barry a few days prior and the bones were there like clock work. A nice long accurate cast into a school of 100 bonefish and it took seconds for Abe to hook up and landing his first Biscayne Bay bonefish. It turned out to be a nice day.

The balance of my trips through the 14 were mainly trips to just catch anything and we did just that but the yellow jacks weren't around in the big numbers they have been but snappers filled the void.

The last four trips consisted of three with Chris and his friend Brian as we chased bonefish on fly and the last trip of this report was with Josh, Arman and Aria, all regular clients of mine. Josh and the crew took home some fresh fish dinner and Chris and Brian did well on bonefish. For three days we chased bonefish on spin and fly and we caught bones on every trip. Day one Brian landed one on spin, day two Chris landed two on fly and two on spin and the lat day was a half day which was epic is the calm conditions with tailing bonefish everywhere and we went 1 for three in the first hour. Man was that fun!