Fresh Ramrod Key Fishing Reports

I had a family aboard for a fathers day outing and we started at the reef catching some mackerel - yellowtail and lane snappers and then we moved into the back-country where the barracuda were active and the sharks were hungry.

We were able to pick up some Yellowtail Snapper and Mackerel on a trip out to the reef near Ramrod Key. The Lemon Sharks showed up and decided to make a meal for themselves off of our catch which was a spectacle in itself but we managed to bring a few back for the dinner table also. The fishing will be getting better and better as the water and air temps stabilize.

The nearshore waters of the lower keys are warming up and so is the fishing. We were out doing a little patch reef and back-country fishing where we were able to catch some nice Mangrove Snappers and Triggerfish along with some Sharks in the shallows. The snappers were swarming the chum line so we ended up feeding them some shrimp and the sharks were into dead bait as usual.

We were able to get offshore for a little while even though the weather was rainy and the seas were rough. We managed to catch 14 Dolphin and 3 Blackfin Tuna offshore and then we made a quick stop at the reef and picked up a few Lane Snapper. Trolling feathers for the tuna and skirted ballyhoo for the dolphin was the trick, the lane snappers liked a shrimp tipped jig drifted back slowly in the current off the patch reefs.

We caught a few nice Dolphin off of Ramrod Key while trolling some skirted and naked ballyhoo. The waters were calm and there was only sporadic weeds but the bite was fairly good. We lost a couple of smaller Dolphin trolling but all in all, not a bad half day trip out.

The bite was hot and heavy at the Bahia Honda Bridge on Friday night. There were hundreds of Tarpons crashing the baits on the last half of the outgoing low tide, fortunately we were there to capitalize on the action. The fish we crushing crabs on floats in a big 3 knot current. As the tidal flow was ripping, the baits were being flushed out of the back country where they were getting slammed by Tarpons of all sizes. We jumped two fish and landed one after about a 40 minute fight. The fish was being stalked by an approx. 500 lb. Hammerhead Shark while we were trying to get the fish to the boat so we could release him. The Tarpon was successfully revived and released so he could fight another day. Check out the pics!