For those of you who haven’t seen any of my recent reports – I splashed a new boat this past week. A brand new 23′ Deep-Vee Parker. I simply can’t put into words how happy I Am with it. The ride is simply incredible. Yesterday, we blitzed through 2-4 foot seas with no problem – days during which i would have been slowly slogging through on my 21SE going barely 15 mph, we’re slicing through at over 30 mph and staying completely dry and very comfortable. This boat is AMAZING.

That being said – now is the time to charge offshore a ways and get into the mahi-mahi! The bite has been great! Among other days, I curently have this weekend (the 24th and 25th) as well as several dates beteween the 26th and 30th open. In July, I have the 1rst, 3rd (cancellation), 4rth, 8 and 9th open….as well as plenty of dates later in the month.

6/21 – Today I again had the pleasure of fishing with the legendary Richie Nash – he hired me a couple of years ago for two days of epic fishing in which he ended up with a 46 and 56lb king and a 30lb blackfin tuna.

Well, he sure brought the bite with him again.

Fishing in the 12-20 mile range – everywhere we went was covered in fish, bait and fliers.

Among some of the insane things that happened today.

1)We went through 30 ballyhoo in a couple hours. We were getting hits before i could get two lines out.

2)We had a half dozen king mackerel sky on baits with such force they would have easily cleared 15 feet (NO EXAGERATION!).

3)We jumped off and lost probably 10 dolphin – terrible luck.

4)We had a huge gaffer dolphin eat an entire king mackerel right next to the boat.

So, first we run out of ballyhoo (the kings preferred it today), then we run out of pogies – so i put out a spread of naked dolphin weenies (with no strips) and preceeded to watch them get hammered – constantly, for hours. We ended up with 9 kings (and dozens of short strikes, lost fish and 4 or 5 eaten by sharks, cuda and big mahi), 2 big spanish mackerel and 5 dolphin. We probably should have had over 15 mahi in the fish box…but we weren’t holding our mouths right. Awesome day guys!

6/19 – Today I fished with Canon, Henry and Andrew from Ohio. We started out wearing out the bluefish and went out to the wreck to find some flatties and deploy the kite for some spanish and/or king mackerel. Well, the forcast was a bit off and the conditions a little sporty. We still managed a couple nice flatties and hooked a couple screamer kings (both skyed on the kite baits) before we broke them off (one on another boat)…but that sometimes happens with 12lb gear. With a sick crew member, we decided to call it quits and ran in. Left my camera at home – so no pictures today.

6/18 – Today I again fished with good client and friend, Anthony and his wife Kristen. It was slick calm and we decided to get out to the deep and try to find some kings and dolphin around some live-bottom and see if we could find a decent weedline. While we didn’t find any weed or any king mackerel (the bite has been much better inshore lately), we did find the dolphin and some big Amberjacks!

The AJ bite was pretty automatic – everytime we hit the structure, we had one on. But when you’re dealing with 40-60lb fish using 20lb tackle…well, we broke a few off on the structure to say the least. During this time we picked away at the dolphin (mostly in the 2-5lb range) on both ballyhoo and live menhaden, jumping off several gaffers before we landed this pretty bull – pictured below.

AWESOME day guys!!!

6/17 – This morning I fished with the Harrison group – the first group to officially break in my brand new Parker! Well, king mackerel was on the agenda and we hit them pretty hard.

The bite was slow but steady and we managed a lot of knock-downs during the morning and early afternoon. We put a half-dozen or so in the box and released several shorts…we had several great fish on but a few inadvertant nudges of the drag lever cost us a few fish. We finished the day with a small dolphin. I know y’all will be back and i look forward to it!