Its been a helluva week as sea everyone.  Lots of action on our sportfishing trips this week.  First off the big kingfish are starting to show up on the reef in really good numbers.  We’ve caught a lot of kingfish this week and some really nice ones like the big king in the photo below. 

The big bonitos are tearing it up out there as well.  On most of our trips lately, we’ve had lots of action on the troll with bonitos and nice kingfish.  Some small-medium sized mahi mahi have been venturing in on the reefs as well.  On more than one trip this week, we’ve hit a school of dolphins swimming by.  Hungry little suckers, they will eat just about anything you throw at them. 

The wrecks have been holding a few of these really big golden amberjacks.  We usually make a couple drops on some of the shipwrecks off our coast on most of our sport fishing charters.  The wrecks this time of year hold the aggressive feeding golden amberjacks, which put up a hellatious fight on the heaviest of tackle.  Few fish can pull with the strength of these deep water gamefish.  Both of these amberjacks were caught on the same fishing trip.  Nice catch!

 Here is a letter from Gerry Smither, our charter who sent us these photos.  Thanks for the trip Gerry, and thanks for the photos.  I’m glad you had a great trip out there. 

Attached are some of the photos taken on the boat, Big Game, we went out on last Saturday.  Our Captain was fantastic.  Rod was a great first mate, constantly in motion, to make sure we caught fish…and did we ever!  Thanks for a great trip - we’ll be back!  I’ll send some more photos taken back on the dock.

Gerry Smither

The fishing is going off in Fort Lauderdale this month.  There has been non stop action on all the different trips we offer.  Our sportfishing trips have been going awesome, drift fishing trips have been full of action, the Wednesday all day dolphin trip has been red hot and the Friday night swordfishing trip has been getting some good ones.  All in all, the fishing in Fort Lauderdale is just plain spectacular. 

I always tell people, in the summer, the weather is hot… and so is the fishing.  The reefs are holding tons and tons and tons of kingfish, bonitos, tunas and other species.  Most of our 4 hour drift fishing trips have been coming in with a load of king mackerals, a box load of bonitos and a few snappers.  If you’ve been waiting for a good time to go out there when the fish will be biting, then wait no more.  The fish are here. 

The sportfishing trips have been coming in with some big game fish as well.  Some sharks, sailfish and big golden amberjacks are still being caught out there.  The sportfishing boats are also bringing in almost as many kingfish and bonitos as the drift fishing boats have been catching.  On this sportfishing trip, we caught our usual assortment of bonitos and kings, as well as this huge cobia you see hanging on the rack.  Talk about a good eating fish, cobia are one of my favorites. 

The great fishing action has pretty much just arrived, so plan on seeing catches like these over the next 4-6 weeks.  Its going to be a helluva summer fishing Fort Lauderdale. 

So this week, I took some friends of mine to the Bahamas for a few days of fishing in Bimini, Chub Cay and Grand Bahama Islands.  It was a fun trip, we caught a ton of big mahi mahi dolphin, lots of snappers and ton of other fish.  We left on Friday morning and fished across the gulfstream towards Bimini.  There wasn’t alot of action for us on the first day.  We found a big frigate bird flying out in the middle of nowhere and as soon as we got close, insta-bite big dolphin.  We hooked 2 nice dolphin.  The bigger one we lost behind the boat was probably a 20 pounder, and the smaller one was about 12.  We caught a couple little baby tunas on the way across also, but we let those go.  Not much action on the first day, but then again our trip had just begun. 

The next day we made it to Chub Cay, where the fishing was much better.  We fished the pocket hard for marlin, wahoo, tuna, dolphin… anything that would bite.  Dolphin were biting good and we caught a few really nice ones.  We also caught a ton of big barracudas which we released.  Marlin was what we really wanted to catch, but not a bite on them. 

The next day, after sleeping off our hangovers from the previous night’s festivities, we went out for some deep drop bottom fishing.  I have some good GPS numbers for some spots over there, and let me tell you, the snappers were plentiful.  We limited out in about 2 hours of fishing.  Giant button, blackfin, and yelloweye snappers were biting great.  Every drop down on our multi hook rigs, came up with 5-7 snappers.  When we caught about our limit, we headed for home.  The funny thing is that it took me longer to filet all the fish than it did to catch them.  It was a great day of snapper fishing. 

The following day we trolled all the way to Port Lucaya on Grand Bahama Island.  Again, I had my marlin, dolphin tuna spread out there, but never got a marlin bite.  We did manage to catch some big mahi mahi along the way.  When we came upon a couple big flocks of birds busting on the surface of the water, I put out a couple special tuna baits and got 6 or 7 nice blackfin tunas.  It was a good day with some nice fish brought in. 

On the last day, we trolled for home and guess what we caught?!?!?  A whole bunch more dolphin.  We had caught so many dolphin on the trip, we were begging for anything different.  Hey, most of the time of the year out of Fort Lauderdale, we would happy about catching one of 2 of these bigger dolphin, and we caught a ton of them.  Just goes to show you how ya can get a little spoiled with a few days of fishing in the Bahamas.  Great trip and thanks to everyone that came. 

Summer is here!  Kids are out of school, the sun is shining, the fish are biting, now is a great time for fishing in Fort Lauderdale.  First off, this is the all around best time of year for mahi mahi.  I mean, they are all over the place out there.  Most of them are the schoolies, not more than 5 or 6 pounds, but there are a lot of them.  Hit one school offshore, find a weedline to troll along, or spot just one piece of debris floating and you’re in there, Dolphin!  For this time of year, I do reccomend a longer trip, like a 6 hour or all day, because it can take some time to find them out there.  Fortunately for us, birds are much better fishermen than ourselves, and we can spot them a lot easier.  If you’re looking for some decent dolphin action and a possible freezer filling mission, this is about the best time of year for an all day dolphin charter.

Kingfish action has been very decent as well.  Kings, bonitos, mahi mahi, and even some blackfin tunas have been pretty thick along the deeper reefs and wrecks off south Florida.  Best action has been from trolling planers and outrigger baits(rigged strips and ballyhoos).  Troll anywhere from 80′-175′ of water and you’ll get plenty of action.  Try brighter colored lures and skirts on darker overcast days and darker skirts and lures on bright, shiny days.  Seawitches, plain skirts, small mildcraft lures, and drone spoons are the ticket this time of year. 

The four hour drift fishing trips have been pulling in their fair share of bonitos, kings and snappers too.  Some very nice muttons are going to be biting on the next couple of full moons.  This is the mutton spawn off Fort Lauderdale and our night anchor trip usually wails on them for a few nights.  The bigger muttons are already starting to show up on the reef, so its just a matter of time until the spawning begins… and it will be soon. 

Kings and bonitos have started biting on the day drift fishing trips too.  Today we caught a couple of big fat kings and a few bonitos.  The major bonito/kingfish fest doesn’t get in full swing for a couple weeks, but there are plenty of them on the reef now to keep you busy.  By the end of August, we’re going to be so tired of catching kings and bonitos, we’re going to be wishing for some slower fishing.  Just kidding, NEVER!  Well, good luck to all of you that are fishing with us this week, and we have plenty of openings on both the sportfishing boats and drift fishing trips to get you out fishing whenever you want to go.  Call me, Capt. Andy for reservations.  Sea ya’ll on the ocean…

The bite is on off the coast of Fort Lauderdale this month.  May is about over and the June fish are here.  Lots of schools of small dolphin are going to be showing up offshore and the tuna/wahoo bite is going to be on this summer.  Right now though, there is some great action to be had off the reefs and wrecks of Ft. Lauderdale.  Sailfish started snapping this week again, and what a great year on sailfish we’ve had already.  This is perhaps the best sailfishing this late in the season I have ever seen off the South Florida coast.  We aren’t getting the winter numbers of sailfish out there, but we’re still catching plenty.  On 4 charters this week,we’ve caught double header sailfish by either trolling artificial lures or kite fishing.  They are moving through and very aggressive. 

Sailfish aren’t the only fishing biting out there on our deep sea fishing charters.  Golden amberjacks are heavy on all the wrecks and you’ll be lucky if you can even get your bait to the bottom.  These fish are big(40-60 pounds) and they are very, very aggressive.  There are some larger groupers around the wrecks this time of year and also cobia, but its not often a big amberjack does not grab your bait first.  The amberjacks are showing up on just about all the artificial reefs we have off Fort Lauderdale, but there are some really big ones on the wrecks deeper than 250 feet. 

I almost had a really cool fish story to tell you all about on a daytime swordfishing charter we ran the other day.  Rod and Adam went out and did a few daytime drops for swordfish the other dayy.  The bait was down maybe 15 minutes and got slammed by a huge fish.  After a 45 mintute fight, the fish got close enough, they guessed the weight of the fish at about 200 pounds.    As soon as Rod grabbed the leader, the fish took off on a sick run which resulted in him pulling the hook.  It was a heartbreaker for everyone aboard.  They tried some more drops and a little fishing into the night, but no luck.  It was almost an awesome trip. 

There have been some smoker kingfish around on the reefs also.  The drift fishing boats are coming in with king mackerals, blackfin tuna, and a lot of snappers.  The drift fishing has been improving immensly from what it was like a month ago.  Its been great action on all 3 trips, especially the night trip.  Lots of yellowtails and mangrove snappers being caught on the night anchor trips.  Most of them 1-3 pounds, but a few of the mangroves we’ve been catching lately are upwards of 5-6 pounds.  Now thats a big mangrove snapper.  A few 20+ pound kingfish have been brought in on the day fishing trips.  I’m looking forward to a great summer.   

Good fishing in Fort Lauderdale this week.  Lots of action on dolphin, tuna and some smaller wahoos.  In fact, our Wednesday All Day Dolphin trip aboard the Mary B III this week did excellent.  They caught all these fish trolling around offshore, in anywhere from 350′-1000′ of water.  The dolphin were eating lures that Josh Jr. rigged up, rigged with bonito strips and whole ballyhoos.  Everyone that came on the trip got a nice catch and went home with some delicious mahi-mahi filets.  But the dolphin haven’t been the only fish biting out there.

Shark fishing is still in full swing on our sportfishing charters.  The Big Game and the Out of the Blue have been coming in with some awesome shark catches.  These are a couple photos of some awesome shark catches.  This photo above shows a truly gigantic hammerhead shark that Capt. Chuck caught on his half day sportfishing charter out of Ft. Lauderdale.   The fish was almost 11 feet long and fought these guys for over hours.  What an amazing catch, congratulations guys.  The photo below was another awesome shark fishing trip out of Fort Lauderdale.  Capt. Josh went out and caught 3 sharks, a sailfish and 3 dolphin fish.  WOw!  Now that’s some great fishing.  2 of the big sharks and the sailfish were released, but they brought this one back to the dock.  This is the time of year that we come in with catches like this.  Great fishing lately and I think the fishing will just keep getting better and better throughout the summer months.  Let’s get out there and do some fishing!   

The Big Game did it again!  This time, they came in with a giant tiger shark, caught just a couple miles offshore of Fort Lauderdale beach.  The fish was about 8 feet in length and man, what a fighter.  This is the biggest tiger shark I have seen brought to the docks in many many years.  Tiger sharks are caught very seldomly in Fort Lauderdale.  More often they are caught in the Carribean waters of the Bahamas than they are caught off South Florida.  On this trip, Capt. Adam and Joey took out the lucky anglers that caught this big fish. 

Normally we release all big game sharks like this.  This one, when it came up to the boat was bleeding profusely out of his gills and didn’t look like he was going to make it.  Being such a rare shark to catch out there, the guys brought him in.  We’ve been catching tons and tons of big game sharks lately this past month or 2.  Hammerhead sharks are biting better than I’ve ever seen and a lot of other species of sharks are biting lately too.  Just a couple days ago, we caught and released a 400 pound bull shark.  Sorry I don’t have any photos of that fish, it was a huge one.  Anyway, enjoy the photos of this huge tiger hark, we don’t get to catch these very often. 

The big game fish have been snapping off the coast of Ft Lauderdale these past couple weeks, and it looks as if its not slowing down any.  When I say big game fish, I’m speaking of sailfish, big dolphins, sharks, amberjacks, and wahoo.  There’s a lot biting off the reefs of South Florida these days.  This year has been one of the best years lately on sailfish and big dolphins.  Its good to see all these fish moving through our backyard again. 

First off, here’s a great shot of some real beauties… and a great fish too.  The mahi-mahi have been biting excellent out of Fort Lauderdale all this month and I forsee them hanging around for May and June also.  Almost all the dolphin we’ve been getting lately have weighed at least 15-20 pounds.  Those are pretty nice dolphins if you were wondering.  In June/July we’ll be getting the big schools of dolphin but they will be the schoolie sized ones.  These big ones strictly come through like this in the Springtime. 

Wahoo have also been mixed in with the other fish we’re catching.  Whenever we’re trolling the reef or high speed trolling offshore, we always have a deep bait out there for that random wahoo we happen to pass over.  You never know when they are going to hit.  In fact, they almost always seem to bite when you least expect it.  The exhillaration you feel, when you get that wahoo on your line, is unmistakable.  Wahoo are the fastest fish in the ocean.  Its quite fitting really, since they are shaped exactly like a perfectly aerodynamically engineered missle.  When they take the bait, it is common for them to go on the fastest initial run of any fish we catch.  They can pull line off the reel so quickly that the drag system begins to smoke.  Now thats a fast fish.  Add to that the fact that they are one of the best eating fish in the ocean and wahoo truly are a prized fish to catch out there. 

The shark fishing hasn’t slowed down any either.  Its still big game shark season out of Fort Lauderdale now and they are eating machines.  There is no guarantee that your going to catch a shark or not on one of our charters, but the chances are pretty dang good.  There is a huge migration right now of the really big game sharks about 2 miles offshore of Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Pompano.  They are moving through, so they are hungry.  Put down a big bloody bait in 350′ of water and you’re very likely to be pulling up something bigger than  you are.  The big hammerheads, sand bar sharks, and threshers are migrating through, but they won’t be here forever.   The hammerheads will be here for another month, then the big sandbar sharks and smaller spinners.  Then we have have to wait again till next year for the sharks to reappear.  It’s always fun while they’re here though.  This is the end of this report, but I still have more photos of some more recent catches that I’ll be posting in a day or 2.  Sea ya out there in the deep…

The Fort Lauderdale drift fishing has been very very good lately.  Lots of action on the 4 hour drift trips, as well as lots and lots of snappers on the night anchor fishing trips.  The mahi mahi have been showing up on the reefs in good numbers abnd have been eating everything we throw out there to them.  Unfortunately they don’t show up for us on every single trip, although when they aren’t biting, the kingfish usually are.

The night anchor fishing has been particularly good lately.  Captain Billy brought in this huge catch of vermillion snappers on one of our night fishing trips off Fort Lauderdale.  They were out in about 120′ of water and the vermillions bit with ferocity.  They must have been starving because we caught so many fish, it took us till daylight to clean them all. 

The vermillion snappers haven’t been the only fish hitting at night.  Big mutton snappers, and I mean big ones, are being caught on the night anchor fishing trips.  In these photos, Mr. Lee and Oliver, 2 of our regualr fishermen, are holding up a couple of their big mutton snappers caught reef anchor fishing off Fort Lauderdale.  There have been some bigger muttons and even a few groupers showing up on the night trips lately. 

The day fishing trips have been exciting lately.  The weather has been beautiful and as usual this time of year, the fish have been biting.  When the kings are biting, we’re on the reefs drifting out dead ballyhoo and sardines.  The action is good.  Sometimes we get jumped by a school of mahi mahi and then we really come in with a good catch.  Lots of action on the morning and the afternoon trips lately. 

Here we are drifting on the reef offshore of Ft Lauderdale and catching kingfish, snappers and this elusive sponge fish.  The sponge I think, put up the best fight of the trip out there.  This lady fought the sponge like a world class angler, and what a fight it was.  If it was a fish, it would have been an awesome catch.  This is her fighting Sponge Bob as we named him.

And lastly, lots of action on the small reef fish like trigger fish and stuff like that.  We released this beautiful queen trigger fish right after catching it.  This was this boy’s first saltwater fish.  A very nice first catch for him, if I do say so myself.  We also caught a big sailfish on the same trip.  This is a photo of the sailfish along side the boat, just prior to release. Nice trip guys. 

Today, aboard the Keeping It Reel, we had an awesome day out there.  I started off catching some live ballyhoos.  I started bumping them around got a kingfish on the downrigger bait pretty quick.  We put everything back out, and nothing for almost an hour and a half.  Pretty discouraged, I started bumping over toward the closest shipwreck with my spread of baits still out.  I’m training a new captain right now, so I was in deep conversation about showing him the ranges for this wreck when I see something that just doesn’t look right out of peripheral vision.

I turn my head and I see a dolphin (mahi-mahi), flip his tail out of the water, right where my right short bait used to be.  I yelled down to the cockpit, “Josh, right short!!  Big dolphin”.  Josh grabbed the rod and freespooled it for half a minute.  He yelled up, “Let’s try him,” he locked it up and started winding.  The fish broke water as soon as he came tight.  It was pretty far out, so I couldn’t see if it was a cow or a bull, but it looked pretty big. 

Cow dolphin usually get to the baits first.  Bulls have a lot of water to push with that huge blunt head and usually get to the baits a little after the cows get there.  I kept a close eye on the other baits, but nothing was happening, so we concentrated on fighting the one we had on the line.  It was getting closer to the boat now, and we could tell it was a nice cow, about a 20 pounder.  It was almost invisible, but I saw the glow of blue about 10 feet trailing behind the cow.  It was a bull and it was a big one.  Both fish were off our port side, the cow on the line and bull trailing free right behind it. 

I still had a couple live ballyhoos out of the riggers, so I had Josh wind one up close to the boat.  Both fish swam within feet of the live ‘hoo and the bull didn’t even look at it.  I pitched out a live pilchard and still, he wouldn’t eat.  One of the customers threw out chunk of ballyhoo, again no luck.  The cow went for a couple more runs and the bull just faded away.  We didn’t see him for a long time, so I said ok, boat the cow.  Josh stuck a gaff in it and threw it in the box.  It was a very nice cow, probably a 20 pounder or so.  I went down into the cockpit to pose for a quick photo when the captain I was training yells from the bridge, “There he is!  Right on top, 20 feet back.  It’s the bull.”  I ran up the ladder and by the time I got up, Josh was freespooling the right long.  We had never brought it in the entire fight of the cow. 

When Josh came tight on the bull, the fish jumped like blue marlin.  This fish grey hounded on the surface and threw a wake.  This was a huge dolphin.  I guessed him a 50 pounds on the first jump.  It was a slob.  The angler was this tall dude from Canada and wow, did this fish put a hurting on him.  He battled this fish for 5 minutes.  This fish took this guy from one side of the boat, to the other, and back again repeatedly.  The fish would be coming in easy for a few minutes and then go on a sick, rampaging run that ended with 2 grey hounds and a somersault.  The most brutal part of the whole fight was that we only had him on a 20 Shimano TLD.  I’ll tell you what, that little reel can hold it’s own.  The customer even remarked how nice that little reel held up to that huge fish.  That dolphin put the angler through the fish fight of a lifetime and what a great show. 

We finally got the fish within gaff range, and just to make sure we got the fish in the boat perfectly, I ran down and stuck him myself.  Josh ran over with the bat and put him down.  Cheers, Hoots and Hollers, Horrays all around.  It was a HUMONGOUS dolphin.  It was not my personal biggest, but definetly ONE OF my biggest dolphin that I’ve ever caught.  We stopped at Lauderdale Marina and weighed the fish.  Their scale said he weighed 41 pounds, but wow did he look 50.  The fish has a Huge head on him as you can see in these photos.  Anyway, the dolphin fishing is awesome right now, so if you’re looking for one of the most fun, best eating and coolest gamefish, come down for some Fort Lauderdale fishing action with Fishing Headquarters.