FL Keys in Feb - UPDATE w/ pics

First off, I'd like to thank everyone who provided information in my previous thread. I got back from my trip to Islamorada earlier this week and had a blast!

Before the trip even started, I was watching wind and wave forecasts for weeks leading up to our planned charter and things weren't looking overly promising. However about 3 days before we left MI, the wind forecasts were suddenly dying down and we were looking at single digit winds on our trip

The day of our trip was perfect - started off a little chilly in the 60s but no clouds and 5mph winds. We chartered with Captain Skye of the Blue Heaven out of Robbie's Marina. The plan for the day was to start off fishing for yellowtail and mackerel in the morning and then go after mutton snapper and cobia in the afternoon.

We first started by netting bait:

One toss of the net and we had a fair amount of bait to start the day. What happened next was pretty cool - at the dock one of the other captains was having some sort of issue and talking with our captain (lost his cast net or something) After we netted bait, the 2 captains met on the water and our guy hooked him up with a bucket of bait and I thought that was really cool and some good karma

After getting bait, we started hitting up various spots trying to find some willing snapper and mackerel. Fishing for the snapper was a little slow mainly because we were getting swamped by grunts which we kept for bait. We tried several spots and it was the same thing. I think we managed 3 yellowtails, 2 spanish mackerel, and a mangrove snapper.

Eventually the capt came down from his perch with some news - apparently there were a few boats fishing the humps and they were on a great blackfin tuna bite. So the capt gave us the choice of pecking away at snapper or taking the long ride out for tuna. That was a no-brainer so off we went. On the way out we found a floating log and did a couple passes for mahi but no one was home. When we got out to the humps there was maybe another 6-8 boats out there.

So we're getting set up and watching the other boats live chumming and free lining and getting a hook up or 2 every drift and just getting all amped when the unthinkable happens - we could not buy a bite! We did a couple drifts without hooking anything so our captain yells to one of the other boats and asks about their bait - apparently we had the wrong type of pilchards. What happened next was amazing (remember the karma I mentioned before) - this huge 40'+ boat motors towards us and gives us 2 huge nets of their bait. After that it was game on - my gf started it off by hooking and landing a nice skipjack. She then followed it up with a nice blackfin and had another straighten her hook after a long battle. I finally got in on the action and nailed this nice fatty:

We hooked several more and it was a helluva workout. All in all we finished with 5 blackfin.

Here's the rest of our catch:

On the way back in, the captain stopped and met one other boat on the water and gave them our bait and some info on the fishing to earn a little more good karma.

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FL Keys in Feb - UPDATE w/ pics