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. If nothing else there is some good fish p**n in this article.
Like My Facebook Page
Click Here
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 wahoo to the other species available out there south of Key West.
Island Genn’s
Wahoo Salad Recipe
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. I would like to 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 deep sea fishing charter in Key West has not caught a wahoo. My career largest wahoo came off of October full moon. 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. Photo of that fish is in the header of this article.
Where To Target Full Moon Wahoo
Pro Tip For DIY
Without making it any worse with traffic at the specific spots that really hold a good number of wahoo 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 wrecks 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.
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 ft Yellowfin center console where live bait and jigging can be part of my activity to target the speedsters.
Trolling On My 47 Viking "InXS"
When deep sea fishing trolling on my liking, I have six sometimes seven lines. Four lines on top, long and short, and sometimes a single shotgun or bridge rod really long for tuna opportunities. Focusing on the top four rods for wahoo, I will generally have a pink witch rigged with a ballyhoo on one of the Long positions and a pink top water, plunger bait, such as the Iland Lures Seastar on one of the short positions off my outriggers. The other two rods are on my Cannon Optimum TS down rigger’s or deep troll. Using a 14 or 16 pound cannon down rigger ball I like to set my baits between 15 and 25 feet when I am trolling the blue water or passing by floating targets. When in a target rich geographical spot I drop back to one engine and sink one of my deep trolls to 45-55 ft this seems to work best. On my Downrigger’s, I will run one naked ballyhoo, and the other will have an Island Jr with pink on the shallower one. And, of course, a dredge or teaser to get their attention.
Check Out My Web Site For my 47ft Viking the INXS
Key West Deep Sea Fishing
Pro Tip
I am going to twist your mind a little bit and tell you that I have moved away from using wire. We do not use our rig any wire in our set ups. We do quite well with this, and get very few, if any cut offs but Also more hits from leader shy fish such as sailfish. Yes, I know it sounds crazy but we pride ourselves on doing things a little different and our data suggests that it works really well.
On My 36 Ft Yellowfin "Too Intense"
Trolling on my 36 foot Yellowfin is very similar to my Viking just in a smaller boat. However, when the moon is right, this boat has a huge advantage in live baiting. With two monstrous bait wells I am able to carry large live baits that make a wahoos mouth water. My favorite baits are speedo’s and blue runners. Blue runners being more frequently found and speedo’s being their favorite. I prefer baits almost as long as my forearm and rig them with wired behind a decent sized in line swiveled weight.
In this way of Fishing I will target certain geographical locations that are known to have wahoo stacked up during the moon. On those spots, I will typically drift and contrary to my trolling habits, here I will use wire. I prefer a lighter rod in the 20 to 40 pound category with mono when I am fishing like this.
These days the biggest challenge to Fishing in this manner is not the numbers of fish in these areas but the numbers of divers trying to scratch at a bucket list of shooting wahoo with a speargun. With divers in the water at these spots, we have to be very careful not to get entangled. Years ago, fishing for wahoo like this was much much easier before spearing a wahoo became famous.
DIY Tip… Full Moon + Winter months + free divers + deeper water = Wahoo spot.. Keep in mind the laws of a dive flag when displayed.
Hi Speed Trolling
A popular way to catch wahoo in the Bahamas and some places on the East Coast of Florida is called high-speed trolling. Using very large reels sometimes loaded with steel line and pulling baits at speeds up to 18 knots. This form of fishing is very effective In those places. They cover a lot of ground at that speed probably more effectively getting in front of more fish to increase a strike probability.
There is a whole science to this and Not something I do here in Key West So I won’t dive into it. I wanted to mention it do to its popularity in other areas and I get asked allot to do it.
Lets Go Fishing
All the photos of wahoo you see this in this article were caught within two or three days of a full moon. That’s not to say you couldn’t catch one on the new Moon, or between the moons. We realize not everyone can pin down the exact day they would like to visit Key West and fish based on the lunar tables, so we do what we can to put you on them even when it’s not prime time and we catch many fish that way.
Every client that calls, my office gets an opportunity to discuss the possibilities of their day based off of what I know from over 30 years of professional fishing.
Booking a key west fishing charter with me, or any of my colleagues is very easy. But you have to call direct and speak to us on the phone to go over all of your options and make sure you are getting the best fishing charter that’s available on your day with your budget.
Hope to see you out there…
Tight Lines and Happy Holidays..
– Capt. Steven
Direct Line 305-292-7212
Text Us 786-847-3808
Email Me steven@fishingkeywest.com
