Around 10am I arrived at Chris’s house in key largo, then Stephen and Jason got there a little later. We headed offshore toward Pickles area. Expecting bad vis we planned on checking out some blue water action. Didnt even stop on the reef as vis was horrible. Depth recorder said 15' and we could barely see color changes. The decision was made to hunt mahi. We cruised around looking for weeds, debris, birds etc... We found some weird water color changes in 400'. The water went from purple to green. If we didn’t know better, it looked as if we were on a murky 15' deep spot.
We found a weedline in the murky water and Stephen jumped in. He said he couldnt see the tip of his gun. We quickly moved on. We continued to check weedlines and whatever we could find. No sign of our target. We did happen to find a bucket floating which I jumped in to take out an ocean trigger. While we were cruising around out there we saw a boat on fire with a large coast guard ship close by. We were in about 500-600' of water. Not sure if it was some type of drill or what. The coast guard ship was already there before the fire started???
Just when we were heading back in toward the reef, and upset about the lack of action, we found another weedline and saw some action. When we got there we say "Dolphin!!!" 3 divers in the water like lightning. We got into a school of 15"-30" dolphin. Myself, Stephen and Jason were having a field day while Chris threw in pilchards and glass minnows to keep the dolphin frisky. After getting 5 or so in the boat, I traded places with Chris so he can shot some fish.
A boat of h&l fisherman was close by and they were pretty cool. Myself and Stephen then switched places and Stephen was driving the boat. As I and Chris were chasing the school around taking more fish (was involed a lot of very fast swimming) I saw a nice sized cow that was not part of the school swim by. I nailed it. It was a surprising fight pulling me down before I knew it.
While me and Chris were in the water a fuel line got a hole in it on the boat. The H&L boat came and offered to pick up Chris saved him a verrry long swim back to the boat so he could make the repairs. he got the fuel line fixed and gave one of our fish to the h&l boat for being good sports. It was funny because one of the fish he shot had a hook in its mouth, and probably was a fish that they had on the line. They said they lost one. So he gave them thier fish back
Total take was 14 mahi, 1 ocean trigger.
We stopped by crocker reef45’ on the way back in and vis was about 5'
The cow went 42” to the fork and 21pounds.
Also she had a 14” mahi in her stomach just the outer skin was digested.