It has been a while since our last entry in our Secrets to Success series. Earlier this month we published a fishing report about how the mahi bite has been hit or miss all summer. We got off to a great start in May and hoped that would set the tone. Instead the weather has been all over the place. Most summers down here are flat calm for weeks at a time, and this year it has been calm for a few days, choppy for a few days, and back again.
Seasons like this one make a point that is easy to miss when everything is biting: a captain has to be versatile, and the crew has to be ready to change tactics on the fly. So how does a Florida Keys fishing charter put fish in the box seven days a week, year after year, decade after decade?
There isn’t just one secret. There are several, and they work together. That’s what we’ll cover today.
Preparation Is Really About Options
A few years back we wrote about what happens behind the scenes to keep our boats running, from off-season haul-outs to daily engine checks to the endless job of keeping bait alive. If you want that side of it in full detail, read The Secret to Successful Florida Keys Charter Fishing.
What we want to talk about here is what our captains prepare for, and what they do when the day throws them a curveball.
The Morning Check
If you pull up to Marathon Sailfish Marina before sunrise, there is a good chance you will see our captain’s down in the bilge checking fuel, coolant, and oil levels, or looking over hose connections, bilge pumps, float switches, and high water alarms. They also test their radios and make sure their phones are charged. They pull the live radar, latest weather, and before the boat leaves the slip, they make sure their guests know where the life vests are.
None of that catches a fish, but a mechanical problem or a weather surprise can impact a captains ability to produce fish. Without vigilant inspections and thorough maintenance we could not produce fish with the consistency that we do year-round.
The Boats Come Out, But Never All at Once
Early fall is our quieter stretch in the Keys. Kids are back in school and vacation season is over. But the fish are still around and something is always chewing. This is why some of our regulars book specifically in the fall for less traffic, smaller crowds, and special deals on hotel rooms.
Fall is also when we haul boats out for major maintenance. It is no coincidence that Main Attraction co-owner Captain Marty Lewis and his son Captain Alex Lewis both have degrees in Marine Mechanics. Some years one of our vessels might only need just a fresh coat of paint, and others, new motors, or a new custom deck. Being able to do a lot of this work themselves is a huge advantage for a busy charter business.
This also takes planning to ensure there are always boats in the water for fishing. Main Attraction co-owner Katie Lewis handles the scheduling and coordination of these efforts to maintain efficiency. If a crew’s boat is in the yard, you will find that crew grinding and painting until it is back in the water. Preventive maintenance is what keeps small problems from turning into the kind that ruins trips!
Rigged for Anything
Here is where preparation turns into fish.
The mate, or the captain on our smaller boats, rigs the gear each morning for the fishing that is planned. But the gear for every other kind of fishing never leaves the boat. If a captain is set up for offshore trolling and the ocean says otherwise, he can be wreck fishing or reef fishing within minutes of making that call.
That is only possible because every boat carries a wide range of line, terminal tackle, and hooks at all times, plus the seasonal stuff. Kites, balloons, and helium ride along through sailfish season for the days the wind quits on us.
Our bigger boats keep freezers stocked with hand stitched bonita and squid swordfish baits, vacuum sealed ballyhoo, and chum blocks for the reef, and the lure inventory runs from high speed wahoo rigs with cable leaders to 50 wides with big hooks for shark to electric reels for deep dropping in water over 1,000 feet.
Organizing tackle and tracking inventory isn’t fun or glamorous, but it makes sure our crews are ready for whatever the day has in store.
Load the Boat With Bait
There are a lot of boats out here every day, and live bait is very often what separates a bite from a nice boat ride.
The morning ritual changes with the season but the goal never does. Our vessels have livewells, and we keep floating bait cages tied off the pilings around the marina on pulleys.
During the fall and winter bait runs, our crews are out on the bait boats at first light throwing cast nets on pilchards, topping off the livewells and putting the rest in the cages. Other times of year they are pulling pinfish traps that were set with fish scraps and chum blocks, or catching them off the beaches on small sabiki rigs.
From October through March, whenever the ballyhoo are in the shallows or on the reef, our crews will anchor up and chum to draw them close to the boat. They carefully catch Ballyhoo with sabikis and put them into their own livewell (round preferred to protect their beaks), away from everything else. Those baits are considered precious and are earmarked for longer storage in the pens if unused by day’s end.
Right before a crew pulls anchor to leave, they will throw the big nets on them for bulk, since the net knocks their scales off and they will not last as long that way, but they are perfect for a day of fishing.
The variety is the point. This is an advantage our larger boats have, as they can carry a massive volume of live bait. A boat carrying five kinds of bait has five ways to answer whatever the day hands it.
Experience Is What Turns Options Into Fish
Sure, our boats are loaded with electronics, and our captains have their favorite reef spots, wrecks, and grouper holes marked. But fishing is about a lot more than staring at a screen or having a secret spot. Even with the perfect mark on the GPS, working a drift right takes a feel for wind and current that only comes from doing it many times. Our captains still get a kick out of it when a new client asks if the boat has a “fish finder.” Yes, he’s standing right next to you, wearing polarized sunglasses and thirty years of experience!
Pelagic fish like sailfish, tuna and mahi are moving targets. Finding them takes a sharp eye and learning what to look for, and just as importantly, experience tells a captain when he is wasting his time. Recognizing that at 9am instead of 1pm is worth more to your day than almost anything else!
Where’s Marty?
When you visit our marina you might see a “Where’s Marty?” sticker slapped on something at the dock. It was an inside joke around here about how boats look for Captain Marty on the horizon when they are having trouble finding fish. One of our repeat clients got such a kick out of it he decided to print stickers and hand them out during Katie’s annual charity sailfish tournament.
All kidding aside though, having a fleet is an advantage for us as our captains are on the phone and the radio communicating with each other throughout the day. Our captains also have friendships with other local captains and the community does a good job of looking out for each other. While Marty can read conditions well enough to tell you what the day ought to look like before he ever leaves the slip, the radio allows him to gain valuable information on days the fish aren’t cooperating especially when a client has their heart set on a specific species.
When asked specifically about a tough sailfish day, Captain Marty said, “If I’m not finding many, or I am but they won’t eat, I want to know two things: Is anybody else finding them, and are they eating for them?”
That second question catches people off guard. There are days out here with mahi everywhere you look, and days with sailfish everywhere you look, and the fish simply will not eat. As strange as that sounds, you can put bait after bait in front of fish after fish and get refused every time. Knowing whether it is happening to everybody or just to you changes what you do next.
So if the target fish are not eating for anyone, and you are not dead set on one species, that is usually the moment to change tactics and go put a real catch together somewhere else.
But if a client came down here specifically to catch their first sailfish, that changes everything. On a day like that Marty will run down every one of those fish, and he will call for every kind of bait in the boat’s arsenal, and he will have his mate hook it in the back, the belly, the nose, the chin, or the tail until something works. He will do everything he possibly can to get that fish, and with enough persistence he usually gets it done, because it matters that much to him! That is where communication and flexibility earn their keep.
That is not just a Marty thing, though. This approach is instilled in all of our crew members. Captain Alex Lewis grew up watching his dad work and has spent the last year running charters and fishing tournaments of his own, and while he is his own captain with his own instincts, the same stubbornness about getting a client the fish they came for is very much there. Whichever of our boats you end up on, you are getting a captain who wants you to have a great day and will do what he can to get you the fish you came for.
The Tower and the Deck
On our bigger boats some of the most important communication on a charter happens between two people standing thirty feet apart.
The captain spots a fish from the tower and points it out, and from there it is all communication. He might call for a specific bait, or tell the mate exactly where to hook it, because how a bait sits in the water changes everything. Depending on how that fish is acting he may want one that splashes on the surface to get its attention, or one that swims down and away like it is trying to escape. If the fish will not eat it, the mate is switching baits or changing the presentation on the fly. Watching that happen is half the fun of the day.
The spotting goes both directions too. Our larger boats have tall towers, which gives the captain a real advantage looking for fish. But a mate standing at sea level can sometimes pick up birds working on the horizon that are invisible from up top. That is why we teach our mates to scan the horizon between tasks on the deck. Two sets of eyes at two different heights beat one set every time.
The One Part That Depends on The Client
When a client is flexible about the target species on a given day, it’s much easier for the crew to salvage a slow day. That starts on the phone, before they get to the dock. Co-owner Katie Lewis handles our bookings, and a big part of that job is figuring out what clients actually want out of the day. Sometimes people call wanting swordfish, marlin, and a unicorn all on the same trip, and Katie has to walk through what is in season and how much running time each of those targets costs.
That’s not about lowering the bar. It’s about pointing the day at something achievable so the crew can go all in on it. If a client is focused on catching their first sailfish and the bite is slow, they’re taking a chance of running out of time. If putting fish in the freezer is also a goal, at some point a decision needs to be made: keep chasing that sailfish or do something different. That communication is what helps us avoid unhappy clients and bad reviews, which is very important.
Making the Clock Work for You
Time is the most valuable thing on any charter, which is exactly why that conversation with Katie matters so much.
Say you are planning to fish with us and you really want to catch tuna on the hump, which is close to 30 miles offshore. On a three quarter day, your captain knows the clock is against him and the plan is simple: get out there, catch fish, get back on time. Book the same trip as a full day and it changes completely. Now he’s watching on the way out for birds working, weedlines, and floaters, and if he runs into a good school of mahi, he’s working that school before he ever gets to the hump. Most captains are hesitant to leave fish to find fish, as there are no guarantees in fishing, unless of course you’ve limited out or your group would rather move on.
Swordfish trips run 33 to 40 miles out, so there is no stopping constantly along the way. But if you get several drifts in without a bite, or your captain is not confident in the conditions, he can deep drop that same water for yellowedge or snowy grouper, queen snapper, blackbelly rosefish, barrelfish, and tilefish. You came out for a swordfish, but you are going home with a cooler of delicious meat either way.
The ride home works the same. If the offshore bite was slow, a good captain can drop on a wreck for a big grouper or mutton snapper, troll high speed for wahoo, or anchor up on the reef and put a nice catch together before the day is out. All of that only works because the boat was rigged for it before it ever left the dock. Flexibility and efficiency go hand in hand.
So What Is the Secret?
Captains down here like to say they would rather be lucky than good.
There is truth in that. Some days the ocean just hands you one. But after enough decades out here you start to notice that the same boats keep getting lucky, and that is not a coincidence. We prefer to make our own luck through preparation and persistence.
Preparation is not just about the boat running. It is about carrying enough options that a slow start does not become a bad day. Persistence is what gets a first-timer their sailfish on an afternoon when nothing is eating.
Persistence is not the same thing as stubbornness, though, and that difference is a big part of the job. Persistence is working a fish that might still eat. Stubbornness is running a plan into the ground because it was the plan. A good captain knows which one he is doing, and he knows the moment it stops being worth it.
There is no guarantee the bite will be the same today as it was yesterday. That is fishing, and we would not want it any other way. What we can control is being ready for whatever the ocean gives us that day, and knowing what to do with it. That is what has kept our boats catching fish in the Keys year-round for decades!
Ready to come find out? Give us a call at (305) 289-0071 or contact us here and Katie will help you figure out which boat and trip length fits what you are after. Night bullynetting trips for Florida spiny lobster are running now through November and make a great add-on if you already have a fishing day booked with us. Whatever you catch, Katie can vacuum seal it and ship it home.
