Podcasts about yellowtail snapper

Tim and Tanner discuss and epic day Tanner had in Miami, and how to get snook in the winter canals.  The Fish of the week is the one spot snapper.

On this week sepisode Tanner talks about a few recent trips including Miami, Destin and Islamorada.  Tim tells of Mangrove and Hogs off Tampa.  The fish of the week is the nurse shark.  

For the first time in a long time Tim and Tanner both got out on the boat and had success.  This fish of the week is the schoolmaster snapper. 

In this podcast I share bonus tip for catching large mutton snappers.

This week Tanner and Tim discuss their week of fishing. Tim was back after the snook and redfish while Tanner was chasing yellowtail snapper. The fish of the week is the red hind.

Tanner and Captain Tim break down their last week of fishing and pinfish is the fish of the week. Tim went 40 miles off St. Pete and loaded up on the red grouper, Tanner went off Miami and got a few yellowtail snapper.

In this podcast I share a couple strange but very true fishing tips that involve Speedos and live Yellowtail Snapper.  I also share my absolute favorite deep drop bait for Yellow Eye Snappers and Vermilion Snappers. I talk about guys using live mangrove snappers to catch giant snook. By request I have re-opened my online tackle shop. The link is goodkarmafishingtackle.com. I get a number of requests each week asking where I buy the products I use, so I decided to re-open my tackle store and list only products I use and recommend.  

In this podcast I talk about what depth numerous wahoo were caught in after the cold snap in South Florida. I do a fishing trip review from last Saturdays trip after the cold front and share where I caught a couple Dolphin and few Blackfin Tunas on BaitStrips.  I also talk in depth about a new chum additive product called Better Than Oats used for Yellowtail Snapper fishing. This product is made by a local Islamorada Charter Boat Captain and can be purchased at the Tackle Center in Islamorada.   Is it worth buying? I give my honest opinion

In this podcast I talk about a Yellowtail Snapper bait that I really like using during the winter months. This bait works very well on days when nothing else seems to work. I also throw in a couple extra bonus fishing tips for targeting Yellowtail Snapper in the Florida Keys when conditions are tough.

In this podcast I share secrets and tips for catching large Yellowtail Snappers in the Florida Keys. This article was written by Outdoor Writer David Conway for Florida Sportsman Magazine and featured on the June 2018 Magazine cover. It’s yellowtail season in South Florida and the Keys, and we all love those days with perfect conditions, when the wind and current line up and your baits zip back to hungry fish in the chum line—but we don’t always get them. Capt. Ryan Van Fleet, of Good Karma Charters in Tavernier in the Keys, employs some down and dirty tactics for yellowtail for those days. These tactics can be used elsewhere in Florida of course, as yellowtail are widespread around the southern end of the state. They can also be used anywhere and anytime current runs a bit strong near reefs as they produce mutton snapper, mangrove snapper, grouper and other reef species. But wear your old clothes. Captain Ryan with Florida Keys "Flag" Yellowtail It’s only five miles to Capt. Ryan’s reef locations from his dock at Tavernier Creek Marina. The Gulf Stream swings close to the reef there, which can be great for access to pelagics fish like wahoo and dolphin, but can foul up reef fishing with its powerful current and clear water—making it hard to get a chum slick going and fool the sharp- eyed yellowtail. So Capt. Ryan learned to play dirty.“April through June, into July, are best to catch the big yellowtails. I like cloudy days, or low light conditions, like late in the day. If I’m offshore and having a slow day, I’ll wait until it’s late to go in and yellowtail, ‘cause you know it’s going to be good. For visitors to the Keys, if it’s bright and sunny and you don’t have a lot of chum, I’d go out and catch dolphin first and wait until late to go for yellowtail for a couple hours.” I made the 3 1⁄2 hour drive down to fish with Capt. Ryan on a spring morning. After lunch at Habanos at Tavernier Creek Marina, by 3 o’clock we were fishing at spots where, he said (and showed me the pics) he was catching 4- and 5-pound flag yellowtail the night before. I was a bit surprised—such nice yellowtail so close to the mainland? “I can get 4- and 5-pound yellowtails right here in Tavernier, and from what I’ve seen, it’s like that up and down the Keys. You just have to know where the congregations of those bigger fish live, and you have to stay in touch with it, because they do move.” Of course, for us, winds were up, pushed by the late season front we watched roll down on us from the north, and the current pushed right up onto the reef, against that wind. PUT YOUR CHIPS DOWN Bring one hundred pounds of chum in 25 pound blocks. “I like the Killer Bait brand.” He uses old cat litter bins to hold the frozen blocks. Start with 50 pounds in the water in two big, open-mouthed chum nets. Wait a bit before fishing, maybe 30 minutes, 45 minutes to get them biting. Later, once that 50 pounds is gone, drop down to 25, maybe to 10. “You don’t want to overfeed them. I like to get the fish up and get them eating so it’s easy. I commit to a spot and give it time, typically an hour or even more. The bigger fish tend to come later in the chum phase. You’ll also see that the grouper and the muttons will also sneak in after a while, and I’ll wait at least an hour to bottom fish for them.”   We were in 75 feet of water just off the reef. “There’s a reason why fish are here, and they’ll be nearby too if the reef is healthy, with good rocky bottom and lots of bait,” he says. “I don’t fish any spot over and over. I’ll move another hundred yards or two hundred or even a mile and fish there, so that I’m creating another productive plot. So if you go to one spot, and someone’s there, you’ll have another nearby spot you can go to.” Even if people are only in the Keys for a week, he tells them to do some research with depth finder and try a few different areas. With the wind picking up the line and the current running strong under the boat, it was tough to feel the bait sinking into the current and the line pulling off. So Ryan put the rod in the holder and fingered out the line. This takes some skill, because you have to feel the exact instant the fish takes the bait, then pick up the rod, close the bail and catch the fish. But fingering the line out gives you a better connection to feel the drift of the bait in the current. Your pull needs to match the pull of the current,” he says. “I’m not fighting the wind with the rod. The 30-pound braid cuts through the wind to let the bait drop, but I still might need to put the bait in a chum ball to get it down faster where the current will take it.” Ryan uses that 30-pound braided main- line and tries to get fish on his outfit with a 30-pound fluorocarbon leader of about six feet. If they’re line shy, he’ll switch down to the outfit with 15-pound leader. But he likes 30-pound because with it he can haul in the bigger fish fast and keep them from any sharks or ‘cudas.  He likes 3/0 Gamakatsu livebait hooks because they’re strong; they don’t bend and cost you fish. “The little yellowtail jigs, those hooks will bend.” We started to get the yellowtail, one at a time. For bait, he’ll use slivers of bonito, fresh dead goggle eye if he has them or slivers of speedo he’ll catch in the chum line with the ice-fishing rod he brings along. “That ice-fishing rig is perfect size for picking up bait by the boat.” Live pilchards are a great bait, if you can get them. The recycling bin on his deck is full of his loose chum. There’s no sand in it. It’s only scratch grains mixed with water. The product he uses is called Home Grown Layer Crumble. It’s yes—chicken feed. “I mix it with water until I get it the consistency of a dough ball. It binds up well, but it takes some mashing up. It holds together well in the saltwater. “If I get in a pinch and cannot get block chum, this stuff gets them to the boat without the use of raw chum,” he laughs. “It costs $30 for a 50-pound bag. I just added some fish oils and menhaden milk to the mix and put it in the chum bag. Just shake it and you’re set. Also works great for patch reef fishing.” Did I mention Capt. Ryan calls his spots the Fish Farm? For the chum ball, you bind up your hooked bait in the loose chum the size of the baseball. You drop the chum ball, let it sink down into the current, let it ride into the strike zone, then give the line a tug to pull it apart and attract the fish. Alternately, without a chum ball, cast out your bait, give it a head- start in the current, then throw out a handful of loose chum to cover your line. But the chum ball will help the bait sink faster in hard current. “Some guys will dilute their chum ball mixture into a slop,” he tells me, “and they’ll throw it out into the water to cloud it up and throw their line and get the fish feeding at the same time. That works really well on the bright days with really clear water.” We had a decent box of fish after two hours, including a nice mutton snapper, when the front came down and we had to duck back into the marina for safety. We waited it out, and headed back out for sun- set. “This is my favorite time to yellowtail of all,” Capt. Ryan said. “And the mangroves come out at night, too.” His clothes were absolutely splattered with chum. His boat was a mess. On the way out, he said, “There is another little trick to the menhaden chum. In the winter time, the fish get lethargic. They’ll eat the chum, but they won’t take the bait. Even on light leaders. Those winter days, I won’t even take out bait, just a lot of menhaden green chum (TournamentMaster green chum). For that trick—you get really dirty doing it, but when all else fails—there’s something in the menhaden green chum. It’s like little gizzards of fish, and you pick them out, looking through the thawed chum, and put ‘em on your hook and you’ll get bites. Everybody thinks I’m crazy, but I learned that trick from an old-timer, an old yellowtail fisherman, and those guys know how to fish.” HUMAN COMPETITON Let’s face it. In the Keys, barracuda and sharks aren’t your only competition. Get out there first, with a lot of chum. “If you’re coming in at 11 o’clock when everybody’s ch um slick has been going,” Capt. Ryan says, “you’re probably going to get your butt kicked and waste some money. They have the fish in their chum, and you’re not likely going to take them away. Remember, if the current is ripping, you’ll have to watch to see that your chumline isn’t blowing away to nothing and just staying on the surface. You can try the chum balls then.” As for proximity, you don’t want to be fishing in another guy’s chum slick. His general rule is, if he can hear their conversations, he ’s way too close. “There’s yellowtail up and down those reefs. So find an area where nobody’s fishing and try it,” he advises.     Learn more about how to catch Yellowtail Snapper in the Florida Keys by listening to my previous podcasts. https://tavernierfishingcharters.com/episode-013-i-cant-stop-catching-black-grouper/ https://tavernierfishingcharters.com/episode-036-yellowtail-snapper-secret-bait-for-flags-revealed-and-a-ballyhoo-rigging-tip/ https://tavernierfishingcharters.com/episode-036-yellowtail-snapper-secret-bait-for-flags-revealed-and-a-ballyhoo-rigging-tip/ https://tavernierfishingcharters.com/episode-034-how-to-catch-more-yellowtail-snapper-in-the-florida-keys-secrets-to-avoiding-the-tax-man/

Learn How to Catch to Mutton Snapper in the Florida Keys using these tips and techniques. Ball Bearing Swivels In previous podcasts I mentioned that I used the SPRO brand power swivels(50lb-80lb) for constructing wind-on leaders for targeting Mutton Snappers, but a few months ago I made the switch to the Diamond Brand Ball Bearing Swivels(50lb-70lb.) I made this change because I was seeing way too many SPRO swivel failures and was seeing an increase line twist problems resulting in leader failures. I have been extremely happy since I made the switch a few months back from SPRO to the Diamond Brand Ball Bearing swivels especially when using use long leaders(50-100ft) and heavy weights.   I basically eliminated the line twists problems I was having and I have not yet seen swivel failure since I switched from SPRO Power Swivels to Diamond Ball Bearing Swivels.    If you want to learn more about selecting the right swivel for the application I highly suggest reading this article https://georgepoveromo.com/content.php?pid=50 To extend the life of the ball bearing swivels and get the most of out their performance,  I spray them with a little WD-40 out of the box, then after each trip the swivels get sprayed down with hot water and hit again with WD-40 prior to the next fishing trip. The Diamond Ball bearing swivels added another level of confidence to my Mutton Snapper fishing game, they have also saved me a ton of money but extending the life of my fluorocarbon leaders. I purchase mine from Melton Tackle Product Description: Diamond Rotary Ball Bearing Swivels are the finest ball bearing swivels manufactured today. Welded eye rings for added strength and both ends of the swivel rotate individually to eliminate any chance of line twist. They cost 12.59 for a pack of 6. One pack will last me me month, it just depends on how many times I snag the bottom which maybe once every 3 charters. https://www.meltontackle.com/diamond-rotary-ball-bearing-swivel.html Bait Buttons For Mutton Snapper Presentation is everything when it comes to live bait fishing for Mutton Snappers, these fish can be very finicky.  I just recently found a product online called Bait Buttons (https://www.baitbuttons.com/) These little buttons keep the live baits and dead baits locked and stable on the hook. It is very hard for frisky live baits baits such as the pilchard or live ballyhoo to wiggle its way off the hook or flip back over the hook resulting in a fouled up bait with it pegged on the hook with a bait button.  On a recent Mutton fishing charter trip my clients were getting more Mutton Snapper bites and the hook up rate drastically improved. We also landed a couple nice Yellow Jacks and caught a very nice African Pompano along with a few Amberjacks using the bait buttons. I had been using several types of materials(soft beads, rubber bands and zip ties) to keep live baits and dead baits from sliding up and on the hook and the line, until I found the Bait Buttons. For detailed instructions on how to use the bait buttons just click on the link below. This link will show you exactly how I use the buttons when hooking a live pilchard on the hook for target Mutton Snappers  https://www.baitbuttons.com/techniques/live-minnows I also had a chance to test out the Bait Buttons for Yellowtail Snapper fishing using dead bait. It is extremely tough for any fish to rip a bait off the hook with this this bait button. It keeps the bait pegged on the hook. Below is young client of mine with the first batch of jumbo size Yellowtail Snappers he caught using the bait buttons. We used only 6 tiny pieces of bonito the entire trip which his basically un-heard of when it comes to flat lining for Yellowtails to catch these Jumbos, not to the mention he lost another 5 or 6 Yellowtails to the Sharks and the Barracudas on this trip. I encourage you to try the Bait Buttons out. You can order these directly though the Bait Button Website: https://www.baitbuttons.com/buy-now/original/I am using two different styles of bait buttons: BIG GAME Bait Buttons-Larger Hooks Pre-loaded Dispenser (with 25 buttons)-Cost is $8.89 Original Bait Buttons-Smaller Hooks Pre-loaded Dispenser (with 100 buttons)-$8.89 Make sure you read the product descriptions carefully before ordering. To save time I preload the bait buttons on the hooks  before I go fishing. Captains Choice Pure Sardine Chum Should have been using this chum years ago, It is 100% natural Sardine chum and it awesome!  This chum is now my number one choice of chum for Yellowtail Snapper fishing in the Florida Keys.  The fish love sardine oil in the Captains Choice chum  The ballyhoo and speedos go nuts for this stuff so if you are planning on visiting the Florida Keys and are planning on catching your own bait using a cast net or by using a Ballyhoop, then I highly recommend using Captains Choice.   Captains Choice is used by the a majority of the commercial fishing fleet through out the Florida Keys as their chum of choice for targeting Yellowtail Snapper.   For bulk orders you can contact Robert at 305-815-8290, but if you need just one or 2 blocks below are list of current tackle shops in Miami and the Upper Florida Keys that sell Captain Choice. This stuff is hard to find.  Miami Area Bird Road Bait and Tackle 4048 Sw 94th Avenue Miami, FL 33165 (786) 773-3030  Captain Jax Bait and Tackle 490c E 4th Ave, Hialeah, FL 33010 (786) 300-5362 Upper Florida Keys  Captain Bad's Tackle 103100 Overseas Hwy #43, Key Largo, FL 33037 (305) 451-2248 Wild Willys Witches Can not say enough good things about Willy and his Witches. His customer service is outstanding. He works with his clients one on one and wants to make sure you get the Witch you want for the application.  His Sea Witch lure heads are absolutely perfect! The paint and tie jobs are the best I have seen on the market.  The one lure all dolphin fishing must order from him is his blue or crystal orange head 3/4 oz or 1/2 oz head. You can catch several dolphin on this lure before it begins to show signs of wear. You can place a custom order through by contacting Willy through is facebook page https://www.facebook.com/wildwillyswitches/df. I am working on testing a couple new lures Willy created for me, that I will reveal in the near future, so stay tuned.

Yellowtail Snapper are fun to catch, great to eat and have a unique and canny way of avoiding your hook. This show will help you catch more yellowtail snapper by teaching you some widely used expert Yellowtail snapper techniques. Also we talk about some of the best of Florida's West Gulf Coast fishing which is going on right now. A new bill in congress called "The Forage Fish Conservation Act, is to set federal catch limits on catching bait to combat commercial exploitation of forage fish.

  In this podcast I reveal a Yellowtail Snapper fishing trick that I use to get past file fish and trigger fish in the chum.   I also share a ballyhoo rigging tip.

In this episode learn how to catch more Yellowtail Snapper in the Florida Keys (Key Largo, Islamorada and Tavernier) by avoiding the "taxman".    I also share a true story about a Barracuda that launched himself at my neck while I was taking a fish off the hook! Also learn why you should avoid killing a Barracuda that swims with "Flag" size Yellowtail Snappers. At the end of a the podcast is a bonus fishing tip. I have many Florida Keys Yellowtail Snapper tips and tricks that I will be sharing over the next few months. If you are visiting the Florida Keys this spring and plan on venturing out to catch Yellowtail Snappers I highly recommend checking out the Florida Sportsman Article I was featured in. This article will help you catch more fish! https://tavernierfishingcharters.com/florida-sportsman-article.pdf

Florida has some the best that the ocean has to offer. From Clams to Grouper, to Yellowtail Snapper, if it swims and is fresh I want to cook it!