Key West Wahoo Fishing Full Moon
Full moon wahoo Fishing in Key West can be pretty spectacular. How to plan a trip to catch wahoo in Key West during the full moon has some variables not only is the weather a consideration, but also how you would like to fish for them. I’m hoping to help out with some of those variables as a local Key West charter boat captain that uses two different boats to fish for wahoo.
About Wahoo
First off, I think the value and the fun for me in wahoo fishing for my anglers that fish with me is their ability to scream off drag and fight throughout most of the hook up. I personally do not care for the way they taste unless they are smoked and ground up into wahoo salad like my wife makes – here’s her wahoo salad recipe. For the longest time, people used to think wahoo were the fastest swimming fish in the Atlantic Ocean. That’s simply not true while they can certainly put on the after burners the Sailfish has him beat in sprinting. A close cousin to the king Fish or King mackerel with similar body styles, and athletics I called them the pretty and tasty mackerel. Sometimes I call the King Fish, the dirty wahoo.
These days many of our clients have got wahoo fever after seeing some of the YouTube videos and articles from the Bahamas in the massive fish they catch there. As a charter boat Captain, I like to add them to the other species available out there south of Key West.
Lets Talk About Timing
There really is no wrong time to fish for wahoo if you caught one and they can show up at any given time for any given reason so let’s start off by saying let’s not pigeonhole ourselves into just fishing for wahoo on a full moon. However, a full moon can certainly enhance the bite.
My favorite months for fishing for wahoo is October through the end of February – so, the colder months. Now, that said, there is not a month on the calendar that I or any other seasoned charter boat captain in Key West has not caught a wahoo. My career largest wahoo came off of October looking at my logs the most wahoo in a month was November. Maybe I got a break in the weather or more numerous trips that wanted to catch wahoo but that’s the stats. And looking over those stats, it was certainly around the new moon and the full moon of November.
Many people like to dial it in to what particular day during the full moon cycle is best. I respond to that question with two and sometimes three days before a full moon the chances will increase as you get closer to the full moon, and of course, the day of the full moon, and sometimes one and occasionally two days after. On the other side of the lunar cycle, the new moon can also present a better than average shot at catching a wahoo. Again, 2 to 3 days before and the day of the new moon.
Is there a better time of day to fish the full moon for wahoo? I would say first thing in the morning before all of the traffic gets out there however, just the other day (the day of the full moon) we boated our first wahoo at 10 AM. He was out in the blue, no rhyme or reason 350 feet of water and there he was.
Where To Target Full Moon Wahoo
Without making it any worse at the specific spots that really hold a good number of fish during a full moon, I will say just this. If you’re going to target wahoo during this time, I would look just past the reef line at any known wrecks humps and reef edges that may go from 80 feet down to 150 ft. Remember wahoo and Kingfish are closely related in the mackerel family so similar habitats can apply when using bottom features like Rex and reefs to target wahoo.
When trolling for the random wahoo, full moon or not out in the deeper water things that are floating in the water are a huge help. Typically if it will hold mahi-mahi, it most likely has a wahoo under it. I will go over how to target them specifically later in this article.
How To Target Full Moon Wahoo
Let me first start off by saying there are dozen ways to skin a cat, and everybody has their way of targeting and catching wahoo. So in this article, I will share how I fish for wahoo on both my boats my 47 foot Viking, which typically focuses on trolling trips and my 36 foot yellow, where live bait and jigging can be part of my activity to target the speedsters.
Just Not Enough Time...
I ran out of time when writing this article and had to go fishing. I will be back shortly to finish it up, so please stop by again.
