Offshore Kayak Fishing in South Florida

I’ve always been a little uncoordinated. Paddling the Hobie offshore kayak with your feet while using your left hand to turn the boat left or right required my full attention. In fact, it took almost all day for me to not turn “left for right” and “vice versa”. It may have been that I grew up as a sailor using a tiller to push left for right, but it still had me zig-zagging the entire day.

As I learned from Matt and Eric, the owners of Deep Blue, hands-free kayaks are a must for offshore kayak fishing. Their kayaks of choice are Hobies which is on the equipment list at the end of this article.

The type of bait used is known as “greenies”. We often used them for offshore fishing and it always gives you the best chance of catching.

The other group of kayak fishermen were with Matt, (the president of Deep Blue) and they hooked up first with a tuna. Being just about 30 yards southeast from us, made the difference in the first catch of the day.

We kept peddling (darn this was hard work on the legs) and started to head more southeast when the Virginia fisherman hooked up a king mackerel. About the same time, I was watching him reel in, a “dolly” hits my rod. She came up for 2 jumps before devouring my greenie and spitting the Mustad hook out like she had done it 1,000 times before.

Offshore kayak fishing and how you hold the rod for leverage is different than fishing in a boat. You can still hold the rod on your leg, but it’s better under your arm.

Little did I know that this was to be my first and only hit of the day.

What I learned from Matt and Eric is that the loggerheads see the flippers on the bottom of the kayak thinking they are female turtles. And when it is mating season, the males become very curious about anything looks anything remotely like a female, even if it is a kayak.

The king mackerel was about 14-15 pounds, and Eric popped him into the fish bag on the back of my kayak. He also gave me a new “swimmer” for our next drift over the reef.

The day was really gorgeous, and the seas had flattened out considerably. Especially enough to hear the whoops and hollers of the other guys who had nailed a tuna and a small Mahi.

Even though the whole group had fish, I was going to shore after an incredibly gorgeous day on the water, but “skunked” in the catching department.

By this time, my legs were going to jelly.  Peddling for 5 hours straight is no easy feat. In addition, we were trying to peddle against the current. As my kayak got further north of the inlet, 

I kept trying to peddle faster but to no avail.

The closer to shore, the stronger the current. And the waves started to pick up. All of a sudden being pushed sideways (a big “no” in offshore kayak fishing) the kayak started slowly rolling over in the ocean.

My first thought was to make sure the rod wasn’t hitting the bottom of the ocean as I pulled it out of the kayak. Saving my “Yeti”, I started swimming the kayak to shore. The guides swam out to get my boat while my wobbly legs hit solid ground after six hours.

After some logistics with boats and drying off, we Ubered back to the park for transfer back to our vehicles. All in all, an amazing day on the water.