Today my fishing buddies for the first charter trip of the new year was a great group of guys who are contractors doing some work in Port Canaveral on the Disney terminal. With overcast skies forecast making sight fishing impossible our game plan consisted of running offshore to the Cities Service tanker wreck to play with the amberjack. After that the plan was to give the Mahi a shot.

   We left Port Canaveral with calm seas and the ability to run as fast as we wanted so I put the hammer down and after a 35 knot ride we we at the wreck in a little over 45 minutes 28 miles east of the port. Using a butterfly jig we were able to hook up immediately on our first drop on the wreck and were doubled up until pulling the hooks on one of the two fish. Arty was able to land a 35 pound Amberjack and Mat followed with a 20 pounder who was released to grow up. We had a number of other hook ups on much larger fish but we could prevent them from getting to the wreck and cut us off and 5 jigs later we decided that we'd move on to phase two of today's plan.

   We began trolling balao (pronounced "ballyhoo") in a southeasterly direction in about 240' of water until we ran into the current edge of the Gulfstream with a nice rip and weed line. Within minutes we had our first Mahi on board and had consistent action for the rest of the afternoon. We also managed to hook up a Sailfish and fought it for about fifteen minutes until it straightened the hook and earned its freedom.

   It was a great start for the new years charter season for me and a fantastic time was had by all. It's been far too long since last summers charter season and I'm praying that the economy will get better this year and bless me with a busy season taking folks like these fine folks offshore to enjoy my passsion.

Final tally for the day:
8 Mahi-Mahi
2 Amberjack