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May is Grrreeeaat!!!


May 7th, 2024

Hi! Thanks for reading my blog! This is where you find out all about what the month of May has to offer for fishing and snorkeling and some other related helpful information. May is a transitional month and many more options are available. I have so much to tell you. So here’s what you need to know to help book the best trip for your group. Just a friendly reminder looking ahead, I will NOT be offering mini season lobster trips, but am happy to take you fishing those 2 days.

So, what makes May different from other months? We are working our way out of Spring and into Summer. Windy season is hopefully becoming more calm…soon….hopefully. We are weeks away from the beginning of rainy season. Water temperatures have warmed to above wetsuit territory. And grouper season is open. Here is what all this means.

A 4 hour reef trip is my most popular trip for visiting families and regular repeat customers. Morning trips are the best and, as our weather warms up, afternoon trips are going to be far less productive on the reef. Outside of rainy season, our water has been super crazy clear. It’s been 100ft of visibility lately. Great for snorkeling, but terrible for fishing when the sun is high. For that reason, morning trips are best. If you decide to do a combo snorkeling/fishing trip, we fish and snorkel in the morning and snorkel and fish in the afternoon to take advantage of the low or high sun angle. Fish don’t have hats and sungless or even eye lids, so the sun is not their friend. For reef fishing going forward, think of the sun as a big hot glowing stop sign telling the fish to stop eating. The higher in the sky it is and the brighter it is, the more it means stop. There is other things to fish for, but that is the way the deep reef fishing works most of the time.

Yellowtail snapper are very smart and every detail matters to successfully catch more than 1

Offshore fishing is also getting much better. When the winds do come down, going offshore becomes much more realistic and predictable. Typically we get an early start and run 27 miles offshore targeting tuna first during the low light period. After a few hours of tuna we transition into chasing mahi (dolphin) and if the conditions are right we may have opportunities to electric deep drop(bottom fish 500′-800′). This is a unique fishery that has a shorter and more highly regulated season each year. The appeal is that it is fairly easy, you can catch something very delicious and you never know what will be on the end of your line. It can seem a little boring until something amazing happens. Sometimes what comes off the bottom is a day maker and day saver when fishing is slow.

This is what the gifts and rewards of deep drop fishing look like. Zero to hero on one drift

Other May options are fishing Florida Bay for snapper and grouper on the windy days or if you like or need it really calm. Also catch and release shark fishing in the shallows is a blast if you want the thrill of catching something nearly as big as you or bigger. For some reason it has been a while since I have run a shark trip. They were super popular, especially this time of year. This is a good trip for all skill levels and ages, even kids. It always makes a lasting memory.

This is a catch from the bayside. Generally, it’s really easy. Nothing complicated about it. However…there are trips where….. Uh, my point is, if you want a super easy trip, please choose the bayside for your trip. Every trip is a learning trip. If learning A,B,C repeated a hundred times isn’t your game, please mention that in your booking notes and I can make a plan for your trip.

May is the beginning of comfortable in the water trips for snorkeling, shelling, mermaiding and playing at the sandbar. I have seen water temperatures close to 80 for a few days now, so it will not be long to where all of our water shallow to deep will be 80 degrees or warmer. That is much more comfortable than our spring time temperatures and soon that water will be a great option to cool off from the early summer heat. All my in the water activities are a little more sensitive to conditions, but it has been mostly good for weeks now. Soon the June rain will turn our water varying shades of green and we will not see the beautiful blue waters we have now for the rest of the year. So take advantage of what is out there right now!

I can provide all of the snorkeling equipment if you do not have your own. I always have extra gear on board in case anything breaks. I also have mermaid tails and a large floating lilly pad for playing at the sandbar. I have plenty of fun toys for having a great time at the sandbar. All of my trips are custom trips and with advanced notice and good communication I can arrange most customer requests.

That’s about all I can think of now. All of the normal reoccurring customer issues still exist and affect the quality of your trips. The more consideration you have for your trip and who is coming and how much you prepare all makes a big difference in the final outcome. This repeated advice is about 80% ignored, so it is what it is. My website contains all of the information to help you have the best trip possible. Every word on my website is revised and updated to answer 13 years of customer questions and give guidance from the lessons I have learned from not having the information in the right places. It is all designed to help us work together.

I like to have fun on my trips. Trust me, you want me to have fun on your trip. I want to have fun with your group. April was abundant with trips where we never got beyond step one. My instructions are no more complicated than grab the door knob. Turn the handle to the left. Pull the door open. Walk through the open door. I kid you not. My program is that easy. I had at least 5 trips in April that 4 adults on board did not figure that out on a 4 hour trip. In all seriousness, if you can’t perform a couple of common sense actions through repeated simple instruction, the fish will win every time. It breaks my mind, but I have been taught that there are far more people out there that can not be taught anything. That makes catching fish extremely difficult. Making easy hard is making fun work into just work work. Let’s keep it fun and easy please! I have an easy fun system that works for 99% of my guests.
On a 4 hour trip, I will give you 3 hours of instructions repeated as if you never heard me the first time or the 93rd time. I have a ton of patience. No, that’s not fun for me, but it is my job to do that if necessary. Hour 4 I will let you do it your way. I will give you my 100% guarantee it will not work, just like it didn’t the previous 3 hours. If you are not invested in instructions, there is nothing I can do to help you have the best trip possible. If catching fish is not important and you want to hold a rod in the ocean and be in lala land, put that in your booking notes. I can work with that. I think that’s a new trend. I can do that. It would make a less frustrating trip knowing catching fish on a fishing trip is not important. Being your bartender, or therapist is a million times easier than being a fishing guide trying to catch you fish!
Law enforcement is close to zero here, so there are just as many illegal charter operators as legit operators. On this particular day, I was boarded twice by 2 different agencies. Previously it had been a couple of years since I went through a minimal stop of any type. This is where your charter day goes into negative territory when the operator you chose does not have the proper paperwork, licenses and more. Again, most do and certainly should. I see people book with some edge of existence operations that they know nothing about. They put their family on a boat that’s one step shy of the junkyard. Crazy, but there is so much more to it. You can get seriously hurt on some idiot boat. One question I never get asked is about insurance. You are covered for ALL of the activities I offer. Makes sense, right? Well, that costs me double a normal charter insurance rate and requires a ton more safety requirements to obtain that insurance vs. somebody that has insurance for only anglers in the boat. What does that mean? It is not required by law. In the real world, many people have copied my business. I stay busy running alternate trips when fishing gets slow. On their boats, the moment you touch the dock or touch the water, you have zero insurance coverage for any unforseen unfortunate event resulting in injury. I watch judge judy, so good luck with that. You can’t squeeze water out of a rock. A minimal cost difference around here between a fraud and a pro, so do your homework. It is regulated, but completely unchecked. Anyways, my safety inspection was very thorough in this boarding. The Coast Guard crew went through everything in great detail. Start to finish, it took only 13 minutes because my game is tight. All things to consider seriously.

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