Sailfish and kingfish are a big part of the Key West Fishing Report this week as the Christmas holiday steams on. With pretty inconsistent weather patterns prevailing over Key West but keeping with cooler temps last week, warming up on Christmas Day.
Key West Fishing Report
The week leading up to Christmas Day was pretty good for fishing on the reef on board the “INXS”. We had some 4 hour 6 hour and 8 hour deep sea fishing charters that turned out well with rod bending excitement for our Christmas week visitors looking for some action.
With the winds occasionally pumping out of the N and NE over 20 The reef was a good bet to stay out of the big wave stuff and still in the fish. Kingfish were pretty much dime a dozen with a feisty cero mackerel bite. Some of our kingfish were ranging in size up to 20lbs and as I write this my wife Island Genn is mixing up some amazing fish dip out of the slabs of mackerel she smoked on her green egg to pass out to our friends and neighbors.
Reef Trolling
Trolling the reef can produce some serious action in various forms. I typically slow troll with well rigged naked ballyhoo on the top swimming along like they own the place. Also on the deep troll my Cannon electric down riggers are put as low as I can get them to go between 3-4.5 knots. Down there I will pull a rigged ballyhoo on a witch or naked where the result will be mostly kingfish, mutton or grouper. As an alternate on the deep troll we will switch out to a spoon for the short striking cero mackerel and yellowtail snapper.
What’s on the surface can be equally exciting. Sailfish are always looking for a snack. Our surface baits are always good table fare and often we get a hungry sailfish to eat our surface baits. In addition to the sailfish we have also been getting hammered by kingfish, bonito, cero mackerel. A good fun day for folks looking to bend a rod on a half day or part of a 6 or 8 hour trip.
We did not get into a bunch of mahi last week although a few were caught inside 300ft of water, even in the North winds. Blackfin Tuna however were also hitting between 150 and 250 ft.
Key West Fishing Forecast
Things are looking pretty darn good on the last few days of the year. Friday 26th and Saturday 27th are looking pretty nautical with wide over 25 out of the East, rain on Friday and more wind on Saturday. Looks great after that we get the bad weather out of our system for a good bit.
Next week looks EPIC!!! Last of December fishing and on into the first of January Northerly wind less than 10 knots and steady 72 – 75 degrees through the forecast period that extends past the 4th of January fishing. This will be an amazing time to be offshore deep sea fishing. My guess is that the good sailfishing will continue, blackfin tuna bite will improve, the Kingfish will get bigger. Watch for the moons full and new for the improved shots at wahoo, 2 days before and day of.
Fishing Charters
January is typically the start of our fishing season. We have a good amount of bookings for January already. Please call us to see about fishing with us on the INXS…
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