Recently, I’ve been reviewing my fishing for 2022. I was a little surprised when I realized much of my mahi mahi fishing resulted in catching only one mahi at a time. The only problem with this is, I really enjoy bringing a hooked mahi close to the boat and leaving it in the water to attract more mahis that may have been traveling in the same school. Along with keeping the fish I call the sleeper in the water, I throw chunks of cut bait behind the boat. Almost anything will work; squid, ballyhoo or bonita, cut into bite-size pieces usually stirs up a feeding frenzy of ravenous mahi. Then I look for the largest fish and cast to it with the same size pieces of bait on a spinning rod. I usually wind up catching a number of mahi, and often reach my personal limit before the school moves on.
I wondered why I’ve caught so many mahi and when I tried to attract the school, it didn’t work. Why have I been catching mahi one at a time? I quickly came up with a bunch of excuses, and reasons, but none of them were valid.
At first, I thought maybe it’s the time of the year. Winter. No, that can’t be it. This time of year, has always been plentiful for me over the entire 20 years I’ve lived in the Keys. Before moving to the Keys, I always spent Thanksgiving week here, and caught some fabulous mahi. I had lots of people question me about this, thinking mahi fishing is only good in the summer, but I have the photos to show anyone interested.
Then it dawned on me that I’ve been doing a lot of fishing alone this year. I enjoy fishing alone at times. I love the quiet meditative state of mind I slip into as I troll the waters anywhere from Sombrero Reef out to the Marathon Hump. But there are problems to fishing alone also. For instance, when a big fish crashes one of my lures and rockets himself into the sky, I have to decide on whether I should fight the hooked fish first, or clear all the other lines to minimize the chance of tangling and collecting seaweed. I also have to make my way to the helm and adjust the speed and heading to keep the hooked fish under control and make sure he, or she, doesn’t spit the hook out and swim away. I also have to throw handfuls of cut bait to keep the fish behind the boat eating enough to stay with me for a while.
Of course, my electronic friend, Otto Pilot, helps me out by keeping the EP-2 heading in a straight line and maintaining the hooked fish’s position and approach toward the boat.
Needless to say, I may be able to handle all these duties. I just can’t do them all at the same time.
Shortly after coming to this illumination, my buddies, Dan, Tim, and I, loaded Dan’s boat with fishing equipment, bait, ice, and anything we thought we might need and headed out for open water and mahi mahi. We passed the outer marker at Sisters Creek to a warm sun on a calm ocean. When we reached the reef off Key Colony Beach, we set out a spread of rigged ballyhoo and artificial lures.
We shared our excitement about what the day might have in store for us. I told the guys about my illumination concerning mahi fishing and we discussed, for when we caught the first mahi of the day, who would do what and when. Roughly, it came down to Dan would slow the boat to a crawl, go to the back of the boat and start throwing handfuls of pre-cut chunks of bait, Tim would grab the rod with the fish on it, and I would clear the lines.
It went flawlessly, Tim brought the fish close to the boat and kept him in the water on a “short leash,” Dan took his position at the helm and kept us on a slow steady forward movement. Tim did a great job of keeping the sleeper calm and relaxed but also made sure the fish wouldn’t spit the hook on a slack line. I cast a piece of cut bait far behind the boat where I saw a little activity on the surface of the water and within seconds was hooked up and tight on the second mahi of the day. “Now we’re having a good time,” I called out. Tim boated his fish with Dan’s assist, and I kept my fish in the water as the sleeper. We did this several times, rotating positions, and duties as necessary, like the members of a well-trained volleyball team.
Then as quickly as it started the fish beneath and behind the boat raced off together like they had been scared away by a huge razor-toothed predator. Which, of course, they probably had been.
We fished for a while and hoped to find another school of mahi, but it didn’t work out. As far as I was concerned, just knowing that we worked together with the goal of raising a school of mahi and catching five nice mahi at one location made me happy. After some deep drifting over a few spots where we had caught muttons over the past few weeks, we headed home, rinsed the boat, cleaned the fish, gathered our perspective gear, and called it a day.
Fishing with people I’m familiar with and sticking to our plan is a joy. Not only that, but it is also very productive when it comes to catching fish.
I drove home comfortably thinking, life is good in the Florida Keys; life is very good in the Florida Keys.
C.J. Geotis is a life-long fisherman who followed his dream more than 20 years ago to live in the Florida Keys. His books, “Florida Keys Fish Stories,” and “Double-Edged Sword” are available at Amazon.com. He lives in Marathon with his wife, Loretta, and her Coca-Cola collection. His email is fishstoriescj@comcast.net.
