Joey Pozzo brought his fiance to Key West to propose to her and do it up the right way.  He chartered the Mr. Z for a sunset trip, with flowers on the salon table, chocolates in the dishes, champagne chilling in the cooler, and a shiny, rather large, ring in his pocket!

When we left the dock,  Joey was cool and collected.  Lisa and I helped make small talk while his fiance Christine told us all about their life in Orlando.  After a few tense minutes, he asked, she said yes, and the bottle of bubbly opened itself in celebration!

At that point it was decided that a fishing charter the next afternoon would be appropriate and they couldn’t have picked a better time.  Flat calm blue water, plenty of strong, live bait to be had, and a swift run to one of Capt. Craig’s secret wreck sites guaranteed a good catch.  At first, we were just trying for wreck donkeys (Amberjacks) to give everyone a good tug and fight to remember.  But, with the first drop in 200 feet of water, Christine came up with a large Mutton Snapper.  Not quite the fighter that the Amberjack is, but much better for the grill!  Our second drop with Joey in the fighting chair, produced an almost 30 pound Blackfin Tuna, very rare to catch while wreck dropping.  By this time the trip was made and I had given up on the wreck donkeys so we moved to a deeper piece of bottom to see what it had to offer.  This location nailed the wreck donkeys and we proceeded to show everyone how they had come by that nickname over the years!

 Thanks Joey and Christine and may you have a wonderful life together!

If you have been keeping up, you know that for several years now, almost ten to be exact, we have been working on getting an artificial reef sunk here in Key West.  Well, not actually in Key West, but in the waters off of Key West to add to our collection of wrecks and reefs that attract fish and secondarily make for great snorkeling and diving too.

It’s the fishing part that we are most concerned with and when we get wind of a rumor of a 588 foot long ship well over 100 feet high, we get very excited by the idea of what quality and quantity of fish this might bring to our back door!  This is exactly what happened 10 years ago when the dive operators in Key West got together and started making this idea happen.  I never gave it much chance, being the pessimist that I am, but now that the ship is here,  and we have a date on the books to scuttle her, I am filled with the highest of hope!

All of the details of this ship and its subsequent sinking can be found on the internet so I don’t need to go into them here.  Just suffice it to say that we are thrilled and once it is on the bottom, we should have even more opportunity to catch bottom fish such as Snapper and Grouper, Sharks love wrecks, the donkeys (Amberjacks) should be world class size, pelagics like Tuna, Bonita, Wahoo, and Dorado will find this structure home as well as the errant Billfish. 

Again, we will be sinking the U.S.S. Vandenberg, a 588 foot fully intact ship within 10 miles of Key West by the end of next month.  AND WE ARE JAZZED!

Bob Wilmouth, with his wife, Vicki and in-laws Lori and Cliff Williford came to Key West in search of the elusive Sailfish.  Unfortunately, they chose the same week as the World Sailfish Tournament so getting bait could have been a big problem (live bait goes for upward of $1,500 a day) but fortunately for us, we had Capt. Steve catching bait for us!

After throwing a variety of live baits in the live-well, we headed for a wreck in 200 feet of water to get the party started with a bang.  Sunny skies, calm blue water and instant action was our reward and we caught and released several Hammer-jacks for warm up.

Then, we put out our live baits and waited…  and waited.  Sailfishing with live bait is usually a game of patience.  Sometimes it is instant.  And sometimes it takes a while

As we were watching to the East, Bob spotted a Frigate bird up high apparently watching something on the surface of the water.  “Big Dolphin will move quickly from East to West this time of year following the Flying Fish,” I said to no one in particular.  A more excitable/inexperienced Captain would have tried to move the baits a bit further into the path of the bird/Dolphin, but I figured that with the speed that the bird/Dolphin was going, I didn’t stand a chance of directly intercepting him and thought that the distress vibrations coming from my unmolested baits would be enticing enough to lure a Dolphin from quite a distance away…  and I was right!

Below are sisters Lori and Vicki with the evening’s dinner!

You remember George Mitchell?  He’s fishing with us several times this month (Thank God for repeat clientelle!) and last time we caught the heck out of Dolphin and Kingfish with George.  (Go back a few entries in this blog to see George’s day)

Well, this trip was all about getting a Sailfish for his wife, Tarra, and his son, James.   It was rough as hell, but the fish were biting.  We caught the live bait the old fashioned way…  we bought them…  and then headed for the current rip and color change we knew would be there this time of year.  It only took a few minutes and we were onto the sails!  Fighting Sailfish in 8 to 10 foot waves is quite challenging, but everyone was up for the test…  and passed!  All fish were released to fight another day.

Randy Sullivan from Houston brought his family to Key West and wanted to show his young sons some big fish.  We warmed them up with some Bonitas on the light rods and then took them to a wreck. Capt. Steve rigged up the 50 lb. rod and we commenced to wear out the boys with Amberjacks.  Every fish was released to fight another day…