It was one of those invitations you just can't refuse. Longtime friend and Punta Gorda resident, Dick Miller, invited me to join him in Key West for a few days of fishing. This was a pretty good offer in itself, but what made the deal a cinch was that the invitation included accommodations aboard Dick's boat, the Water Lou, a fully-equipped sparkling 48-foot Hatteras sport-fishing machine that would also be our platform for some serious offshore angling. Logistical details were worked out and I flew into Key West last week to meet Dick and his crew, which included Gene Hamilton of Punta Gorda, Louis Lavoie of Harbor Heights and Richard Fisher from Cape Coral.

A short flight, a cab ride and a brief walk were all it took to bring me to the stern of the Water Lou at a nice marina in Key West. There I found the dock talk was centered on how good the dolphin fishing had been the previous week. Numerous large dolphin (mahi-mahi) had been landed, including a new unofficial Key West record fish of just over 70 pounds. Less encouraging were the reports from the previous few days, all of which indicated that the hot bite had cooled substantially. The slow bite was being blamed on the Gulf Stream which had shifted its position in recent days to a location some 45 miles south of Key West, a distance too great to be within reach of most of the fishing fleet. The weather forecast for the week was for light winds, good conditions for boaters, but not so great for fishing because a moderate-to-stiff southerly breeze is what seems to crank up the offshore angling action.

The next morning, we left Key West Harbor on flat calm seas and headed due south towards the deep-blue water outside the reef. At about ten miles south of the reef and in about 600 feet of water, Dick spotted a couple of birds hovering over an area of scattered floating weeds, so he slowed to trolling speed and we began deploying a seven-line spread of artificials. But before the lines were all out, we had a double hookup with small dolphin. When the pair of bright-blue fish were fought boat side, they were accompanied by several dozen of their schoolmates. Dick shut down the engines and we proceeded to have fun with the two to three pound minidolphins on light spinning tackle, and I was able to catch several with my fly rod.

Buoyed by our quick success with the schoolie dolphin, we eventually left the young fish behind in order to search for their larger relatives. Several hours later, we realized why the dock talk had been so pessimistic about fishing; it was SLOW. We caught a few more very small dolphin and one small skipjack tuna, but that was the extent of our day. Even when we fished over Wood's Wall, the famous edge 25 miles south of Key West where the bottom rapidly drops from 1000 feet to 2000 feet, nothing was happening, and the afternoon wore along without a strike of any kind. We finally gave it up and headed for the dock, where a half dozen charter boats and several other private boats had fished that day, and all had similar results -- the fishing just was not very exciting.

The next day, we headed back offshore to try again, somewhat buoyed by the fact that there was a bit of wind. The 10-knot breeze had pushed up some two- to three-foot seas, and we hoped that the slight change in weather would improve our fishing luck. The fishing started slowly with only a very occasional and very small dolphin, mostly too small to keep. A couple of hours into the day, we got a double-header of solid strikes. I wound in a rig on which the heavy monofilament leader had been sliced cleanly off, and on the other rig Louis proceeded to catch a 15-pound wahoo, a fish somewhat similar in appearance to a king mackerel.

With a nice fish in the box, our spirits were lifted, and it seemed we stumbled onto an area with some action, because we started to get a few strikes. Some missed the hooks and some resulted in small dolphin, but there was something happening every few minutes and things were looking up. Things really looked up when there was a huge splash astern as one of our trolling lures disappeared in a frothy boil, and a large pointy-nosed fish began dancing across the wake. Louis took the rod and proceeded to whip a nice white marlin to boat side, where the fish was photographed and released. A couple of hours and several small dolphin later, we hooked another marlin, but this second billfish jumped and threw the hook after only a few seconds of fighting. With a wahoo and a white marlin caught that day, Louis was definitely the man of the hour. I was excited to have been aboard for the catch of the marlin, my first experience with any type of billfish.

Our third and final day of fishing was spent reef fishing for yellowtail snapper several miles west of Key West. Key West resident Al Sackett took Dick, Louis and me on a fast 25-foot center console which he anchored on the outside of the reef in 75 feet of water. We deployed tons of chum and soon had ballyhoo, jacks and Bermuda chubs swirling in the chum slick. The yellowtails weren't as cooperative as we'd hoped, but we did catch some, and we got slammed by some large bottom-fish which we simply could not turn on our light spinning tackle. Dick made quite a catch when he hooked and beat a huge king mackerel of at least 30 pounds using 15-pound spinning tackle from the anchored boat. I would have liked to try more of the reef fishing, but unfortunately the clock showed that it was time to head back to town to catch a flight home.

We were fairly certain the airline would not delay the plane because the fishing was good, so we reluctantly racked the rods and headed back for reality. Let's go fishing!

Captain Allen owns and operates the King Fisher Fleet of sightseeing tour boats, deep sea fishing charter boats and back bay guide boats located at Fishermen's Village Marina in Punta Gorda and can be reached by phone at 941-639-0969 or by e-mail at captain@kingfisherfleet.com for boating or fishing information or with questions you want to see answered in WaterLine.

By Capt. Ralph Allen