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July and August are the prime months for targeting blue marlin in the East Region, particularly because one of their favorite foods—little tunny—are here in abundance. The little tunny (bonito) schools start showing up in early June, and but the first week of July are thick as can be offshore. The marlin hunts these bonito on a daily basis.
At the same time, peanut dolphin and juvenile blackfin tuna are also in the area, so there’s a wide option of food sources. The majority of the Spanish mackerel have moved out, but baitfish like threadfin herring, Spanish sardines and cigar minnows are all over the reefs, so there’s no lack of food to draw the bonito, dolphin and tuna, as well as the marlin that hunt them.
Bonito will be scattered, but traveling in schools mostly in depths from 50 to 140 feet of water, but the dolphin and blackfin tuna often range out to 1,000 feet of water or more. If you want to target blue marlin in my area, you can do it three ways: trolling lures, trolling rigged dead baits or slow-trolling live baits. All three methods are very effective.
The majority of blue marlin encountered in the East Region are from 100 to 300 pounds, with fish over 400 pounds caught. If you want to troll lures, you can get away with 30-size reels, but the majority of anglers use 50 and 80 size reels with 300 pound monofilament or fluorocarbon wind-on leaders.
Lure choice is up to the individual, but darker colors like purple and black, pink and blue and the Halloween orange and black seem to be the favorites. The Williamson Big Game Catcher and Live Spanish mackerel are great options.
For trolling natural baits the same size tackle is used, but baits can be anything from extra-large ballyhoo to swimming mullet or Spanish mackerel, which is probably the favored bait. A lot of boats like to put out a combination of the above.
Slow-trolling with live bait is probably the most commonly utilized method of targeting blue marlin in the East Region and required trolling small silver, pink or blue and white feathers to catch 2 to 10 pound bonito, dolphin or tuna. Once brought to the boat, these baits are tethered to a 12/0 VMC big game hook on 300 pound monofilament leader using a needle and floss, and then put back into the water to join the spread. Most boats only pull two live baits at a time.
Since the food blue marlin prey upon seem to be structure oriented, places like Push Button Hill, the Eight Mile Reef and Jupiter Ledge are the areas that a lot of anglers fish. Probably the most consistent spot is along the outside of the bonito schools off the Lost Tree Village area of Palm Beach County where deep water pushes in close to shore and the fish move up on the drop-off to feed. Blindly covering water in 100 to 1,000 feet or more is also productive.
Any day where you get a blue marlin to come into the baits is a good day, but there are days when multiple blue marlin are hooked, and they typically occur in the months of July and August.
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This Fishing Report was submitted on 7/3/2013 5:30:05 AM by Seamus and last updated on 7/3/2013 5:30:05 AM.
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