Belle Glade YEC Fishing Trip and Captain's Report

The students at the Belle Glade Youth Empowerment Center joined us for a day of fishing at the Boynton Boat Ramp last Friday.  The students were all extremely excited to show everything they have learned the last few weeks in class.  It was a beautiful day, but a little windy.  The fishing started off a little slow, but after about 20 minutes the fish decided to start biting, and did not stop!  Many of the students caught pinfish, snappers, grunts, and even a needle fish.  The students also had a blast watching the Ospreys dive bombing the massive schools of mullet running south on their annual migration.  Some of the other anglers at the park gave the students a couple of mullet each to take home, and this week in class they spoke about how delicious they were that night.  Now that we have fished in saltwater, I can not wait for the students to show me how they do in freshwater around Lake O.

Last Saturday we had a great charter with a group of middle school students from Miami and their parents.  As we unties from the dock, the kids all told me they wanted to catch a shark, dolphinfish and kingfish.  We started out trolling our usual areas with no luck, so we decided to head offshore due to the west wind.  A few miles offshore it started getting a little rough, but it paid off when we caught 2 nice dolphinfish.

After bringing in the dolphin we decided to head for the reef and calmer waters.  At first we caught bluerunners and things were not looking very exciting, until the first kingfish was brought to the boat.  Sadly it was an inch short so we released it.  Soon after releasing the kingfish we caught 2 sharks, another kingfish (legal), and all sorts of reef dwelling fish.  We hope the kids all had a great time, and would like to thank the whole group for the most amazing charter.

Santaluces High School Fishing and Kayak Trip - 10/15/11

As a reward for completing the first section of our new "Angling for a Healthy Future" program, for high school students, Capt. Rich decided to take some of the Santaluces students out fishing on our boat, and snorkeling with the kayaks.

The morning started with a fishing trip offshore on our boat.  The seas were a little rough, and some of the students were not feeling the best, so we decided to troll around; and it paid off!  The students took turns reeling in bonitos, blackfin tunas, and skipjack tunas.  We unfortunately also had a big bite off.  Due to the seas we came in early to fish inside the intracoastal were we caught a few lane snappers, and saw a few big tarpon.

Once all the fish was cleaned and put on ice, we then headed over to the Boynton Beach Boat Ramp.  Despite the strong winds the students grabbed the kayaks and a jon boat.  Our goal was to paddle over to Bird Island and do some snorkeling.  It took us all a little longer than we thought to reach the island paddling against the wind, but we all survived.  At the island we snorkeled around the rock, while some of the other students tried to fish again.

It was an exciting day for the students, as well as for Capt Rich and I.  The students were able to put their new fishing knowledge to use, and we were able to see how much they have learned.

The Santaluces High School students will be starting the second section of our program this week, while Belle Glade YEC will be finishing this week.  We are planning a fishing trip for our Belle Glade students this week, and will post pictures as soon as we can.

Captain's Report 9/17/11....and other news...

Capt. Rich and I would like to thank Michael, one of our most impressive students, for driving down from the Orlando area this morning and helping out on our charter.  Michael has expressed interest in learning how to run a fishing charter, and this morning was his first opportunity to learn.  He has been with us on boat trips during summer camp, but this was his first trip out with paying customers.

We cleared the Boynton Beach Inlet at 7:30am, and within minutes we had our first hits.  The first couple of hits were mostly bonitos, but we had a nice size barracuda in the mix.  After about 10 bonitos, we finally found a school of blackfin tunas and skipjack tunas.  We trolled for about two hours and landed 3 skipjacks, 5 blackfin, and stopped counting the bonitos at around 20.  Michael did extremely well learning how to set up the planner and helping take fish off the hooks.

Around 9:45am we headed out to about 200ft and started our drift for kingfish and bottom fish.  We once again landed a few bonitos, along with 2 kingfish, a nice speckled hind groupers, a vermillion snapper, and many more bottom fish.

We had an epic day of fishing, but what made it even more amazing was seeing a student take interest in the industry.  Michael will be more than welcome to help out on any future charters we may have.

In other news, this week was the first week of classes for our new high school fishing and LifeSkills programs.  We started at Santaluces High School, Belle Glade Boys and Girls Club, Belle Glade YEC,  and Seagull Academy.  We are looking forward to an amazing year of programs with the high school students and can not wait for more schools to sign up.

Kayaking and Underwater Photography September 2011

                                                       Michael and Alex

                                                The group taking a break from the heat

                                                    Mario and Roberto

This past weekend we had some of our students meet at the Boynton Beach Boat Ramp to learn about kayaking safety on our newly acquired kayaks.  We did not do any fishing this time around as we wanted the students to get a feel for how the kayaks worked, and how to work together while using the kayaks.  Even though we did not go fishing this past Saturday, the students all hope an amazing time figuring out the kayaks, as well as swimming  and taking photographs of each other kayaking.  Now that they have mastered paddling, they all look forward to going back out and exploring Bird Island and fishing around the Intracoastal.

I have also posted some awesome underwater pictures taken by our students over the last few weeks.  The water has been extremely clear but as you can see we have been dodging the jellyfish, which will hopefully move off very soon.

We would like to thank the Riviera Beach CRA for coming down Saturday to watch our students kayak and hope to be able to offer this amazing opportunity up in Riviera Beach.

Captain's Report for the end of March and Start of April

Notice the banana on the boat with the fish....our day involved bananas the entire trip and we did very well....so much for that myth!!!!!!!!!!

Capt. Rich and I have had a few charters the last couple of weeks which have been extremely successful.   We have been catching blackfin tuna in pouring down rain and tons of other fish in beautiful Florida weather.  We have been catching kingfish, bonito, blackfin tuna, and bottom fish.  Last Saturday we had a group who blackfin tuna, bonito, porgies, triggerfish, and even a nice big cobia all in shallow.

This morning Capt Rich and I went out and caught some small dolphin, two kingfish and as we were packing up a nice big nurse shark decided to eat our bait.  It took about 30 minutes to bring the shark to the boat where we took some pictures and then released the shark.

If you would like to get involved with all the fishing fun we have Saturday morning charters which as $55 for adults and $50 for kids.  Hope to see you this Saturday!

Captain's Report for the end of Feb 2011

The end of this month has been a busy week for Capt Rich and I.  We have had a couple of charters, and all have been very different.  Last Wednesday night we took a group out for a night time shark trip.  The fishing started off a little slow but once we drifted into 70ft feet of water we got our first hit, and after a 30 minute fight we brought a 250lb Sandbar Shark to the side of the boat.  After some photos we removed the hook from the shark and released it.  We then rerigged and set out the lines and soon after we brought another Sandbar shark of similar size to the boat and it was released as well.  Both sharks were caught using a bonito carcass.

This past Saturday we had 2 charters.  In the morning charter we started off trolling looking for some dolphin fish and tunas, but sadly did not find any.  We then headed up to the Lake Worth Pier and drifted in about 100ft and caught Porgys, big triggerfish, bluerunners, snappers, and a large Sheepshead.

That same evening we had a great swordfish charter with an amazing group of guys.  We left Boynton Inlet at 4:30pm and headed down to the swordfish grounds off Ft. Lauderdale, and were set up and ready to reel in a swordfish by 6:45pm.  We drifted north in the Gulfstream to about the Hillsboro Lighthouse, when as we were bringing the lines in to reset three swordfish came up to the boat chasing the bait.  At first we thought we hooked into a shark, but 45 minutes later we had a nice 100lb swordfish at the side of the boat.  We headed back south to reset and drifted north past Hillsboro and got another hit off Boca. Sadly the Swordfish was not completely hooked and the hook pulled after a long run.  Capt Rich and I would like to thank everyone that night for a wonderful trip.  The first Swordfish hit a rigged squid and the second one hit a small rigged bonito.

Captain's Report 2/4/11 and Saturday Fishing Class 2/5/11

Captain's Report 2/4/11

Capt. Rich, one of the mates from our dock, and I went out Friday morning to see what fish were out front of the Boynton Inlet.  We started the morning trolling offshore trying to find some dolphin, with no success, so we started to head in to troll around the reef and bottom fish.  On the way in we found a school of Skip Jacks who were no interested, so we moved on.  We had an interesting time bottom fishing in around 100ft.  Meg and I had a few bites but sadly no fish at first.  Capt. Rich was at the back of the boat, and magically caught 3 flounder on his guppie rig using bonita and sardines.  As a last ditch effort I throw out a white bucktail jig to troll in and as soon as Capt. Rich put the boat in gear a kingfish hit the jig and Meg reeled it in.

Saturday Fishing Class 2/5/11

This weekend was one of the greatest and most productive days for us and the students thus far.  We had about 20 students with us Saturday, and we started the day off with a park clean up.  Capt. Rich, the students, and I could not believe how much trash and discarded fishing line there was around the park and in the mangroves.  The students filled up a ton of trash bags and picked up all the dead palm fronds.  Many of the people hanging out at the park were thanking the students for cleaning the park.

Following the clean up Robert and some of the students went back to the classroom and started up the grill to cook hotdogs and the kingfish caught by Meg the day before.  We definitely have a few aspiring chefs in our fishing group!!!!

Finally after lunch some of the students took their rods down to the water and fished for an hour.  They caught snappers, grunts, barracudas, and even a sea-robbin.  There were 3 students Saturday who caught their first fish!!!!