The summer time action has not let up! We are having great luck on our daily headboat trips aboard the Catch My Drift, we are still catching coolers full of kingfish and bonitos, we have also started seeing quite a few snappers and the occasional tuna. This week we were even lucky enough to catch a mahi mahi(dolphin fish) approximately 15 pounds, definately a great fish to see around. Summertime deep sea fishing is fishing at its best. Come on vacation, take the day off from work, do whatever you have to, come fishing with us out of Sunny Fort Lauderdale, FL.

The kingfish and bonitos are here and they are thick! We have had several drift fishing trips this week on the Catch My Drift where we could not keep a bait in the water. Just today on our morning trip off Ft. Lauderdale, Florida it was a flurry of activity we caught a cooler full of kings, bonitos, and a mixed bag of snappers. We had experienced local anglers as well as first time tourists and a good time was had by all. Come fish on one of our headboats for some hot summer action.

Hey guys,

Captain Andy is on vacation fishing in Alaska this week, so I will be writing the reports until he gets back in town.  Fishing was really good today, we had a couple charters on our drift fishing boats, the Mary B III and the Catch My Drift.  Both trips were great and we caught a lot of fish.  On the Catch My Drift we had a company that manufactures and sells fire sprinkler equipment on the boat.  They were treating their employees and customers to a nice day of fishing in Fort Lauderdale.  We caught a whole mess of bonitos which kept everyone busy winding fish in the whole trip.  We also caught a few mutton snappers, mostly throw backs, but one keep sized one. 

The Mary B III went out the same time with another private drift fishing charter.  We caught about the same on that trip, lots of bonitos and some kingfish.  One of the kingfish was a beauty, about a 15 pounder.  The bonitos are really biting good out there these past few weeks.  They will probably be biting for a few more weeks and then we won’t see them again until next summer.  I’m glad they bit so good this year.  We caught a lot more this year than we have in years prior. 

The swordfish trip that we run every Friday night went great this week.  We started off about 15 miles offshore where we normally set up in the middle of the Gulfstream.  We set out our rigged up squids with light sticks and flashing strobes.  Right away after we got our last baits out, we get the bite.  It was a big one and a young guy hooked into it.  He fought it for a few minutes but it tired him out pretty early on and he handed the rod off.  Glen Boehme, from Kings Park New York,  fought the fish for over an hour and half but finally got him to the boat.  It was a huge battle and near the end, I don’t know who was more tired, the fish or Glen.  It was a beaty, about an 80 pound swordfish, but it fought like a 300 pounder.  Later that night we caught another swordfish which was a smaller one.  We released the smaller one and he swam away to fight another day.  We also caught a nice bull dolphin that same night, about a 12 pounder.  It was an exciting night for us.  The swordfish are snapping out there guys.  They didn’t remember to bring the camera out with them that night so I didn’t get any pictures of the fish whole, but we got the carcass out of the freezer before the taxidermy man picked it up and took a picture of it.  Its not as pretty as the fish was whole, but it shows how big the fish was.  Everybody got a bunch of swordfish meat to take home for dinner.  A great night.  If anyone is interested, we still have a few spots left on the Friday night swordfishing trip this week.

Sportfishing has been awesome this week.  Lots of bonitos and kingfish being caught.  A few sharks have been landed also in the past week or so.  The kingfish and bonito action has been the ticket for us though.  It was a great week of action and everyone we took fishing this week caught lots of fish.  This week looks like its going to be good, so take off a day of work and go fishing!

Thanks for reading my report guys, hope you all have a great week and I hope to see you out fishing with us.

-Capt. Scott

The fish just keep coming in.  The Catch My Drift, the fastest, largest and only air conditioned Fort Lauderdale drift fishing boat has done it again.  Lots of great fish these past few days.  Kingfish, tuna, snapper, jacks, barracuda, and sharks are all biting great on the reefs of Ft. Lauderdale.  Today was a pretty sweet day, we got a big bunch of king mackrel and bonitos.  Early on during our fishing trip we caught a huge blackfish tuna.  Our scale weighed him at 37 lbs, which is very large for a blackfin tuna.  Later on during our half day trip, we caught a big mutton snapper that weighed about 8-10 pounds.  Pretty nice size mutton for Ft Lauderdale.  Anyway the drift fishing boat has been doing great on both the morning and afternoon trips. 

Our night time snapper trip has been catching a lot of yellowtail snapper this week and quite a few mangrove snapper.  They are smaller fish, usually in the 1-3 pound range, but thats just how big they all are.  A few larger snappers have been caught lately on the night trip too.  Mutton snapper ranging from 6-12 pounds are being caught while anchor fishing and chumming the water.  The yellowtail snapper swarm in the chum while the muttons hang down deep below the yellowtail school.  Squid, sardines, ballyhoo and kingfish belly has been working the best for us on this trip.

The sportfish boats are catching the big ones.  Shark fishing is really good in Ft. Lauderdale right now.  Today we caught a couple huge bull sharks.  If you’ve never caught a big bull shark, they have the coolest set of jaws of any shark in the shark family.  Their mouth opens the entire width of their body and can easily fit a whole person inside them.  The jaws of the fish are coarsed withhrazor sharp teeth, and for every tooth you can see, there are about 6 more teeth curled up behind it.  Whenever they break off a tooth, another tooth grows in to replace it and they have plenty of teeth to spare.  Sharks are the most highly evolved predator fish in the ocean and there are some big sharks biting off Fort Lauderdale right now. 

These pictures are  from our 2 charter boats that both landed a big shark today.  The bull sharks measured abour 6 feet in length and weighed an estimated 175 pounds.  They were both great fights and are going to be sweet trophies once they get stuffed.  The taxidermy man has his work cut out for him on those big sharks.  Congrats to the anglers who caught them, great fish.

Drift fishing this summer continues to get better and better.  The bonitos and kingfish showed up late this year, but it seems that they are staying late to make up for it.  The reef action has been way better than expected this year with great fish counts and larger fish than normal.  Today was a great day drift fishing in Ft. Lauderdale.  On our morning trip we had a large crowd, but everybody got some action.   Lots of kingfish, some of them pretty big, as well as some big bonito and snapper.  The bite has been great and the weather has been beautiful despite the weatherman’s attempt to scare everyone away from the ocean.  As July comes to an end, August looks like its gonna be some awesome fishing and September should be good as well.  I am very optimistic and experience tells me that this should be a great year for fishing.  We’ve got lots of bait in the water, sailfish showing up here and there all year long, big catches of bonitos and kings late in the season, and some exotic and cool fish being caught all the time.  Yes, I think this should be a great year of fishing for us here in Lauderdale.

The afternoon trip had some good luck too.  We had a smaller crown on the afternoon trip, with only 9 people.  The rain scared a lot of people away.  It always rains in South Florida in the summer every afternoon, but it only lasts for 35 minutes and then its beautiful skies again for the rest of the day.  Plus, when in rains, we steer clear of the storms to keep everyone in the sun.  This afternoon we caught only a couple kingfish.  The kinn bite was slow so we came in a bit shallower on our next drift and BAMMO!  2 cobias!  Both of them big ones, well over legal size.  They put up a good fish on the boat rods but the anglers did a great job.  Kevin coached them as they fought the fish and we got them both in the boat which MADE THE DAY.  We stuck it out on our last drift in shallow and caught a decent sized mutton and a few yellowtail, plus some throw back snapper and groupers.  all in all a great day with some nice fish.  Nobody went home hungry today, there was plenty for everyone. 

This week the fishing has been wonderful so I hope to see you out with us in the next few days.  Don’t be afraid of the weather report, they always report for the worst and they tend to sensationalize the weather.  We’re only fishing a mile from shore and we can steer around most of the rain clouds.  Cya ya’ll tommorrow and I look forward to fishing with ya.  LET’S GO FISHING!