Today we had the Marolf family out for a great day of Fort Lauderdale bottom fishing on one of our sportfishing boats.  The had a great trip and caught quite a few snappers and a really nice grouper.  The bottom fishing has been the best thing going for the charter boats these past couple days.  There have been a few sailfish around, but the most action and biggest fishing have all been caught fishing around some of the shipwrecks we have sunk in our waters.  We’ve been dropping 3 hook rigs down to the bottom, baited with whole squids and chunks of cut up bonito.  Mostly snappers have been taking the bait, but every now and then we get something really big on, such as a big golden amberjack or a giant grouper. 

This is another fishing trip we took out today on one of our other sportfishing charter boats.  These guys were on a shared sportfishing charter and caught themselves some nice snowy groupers, a big pile of vermillion snappers and an enormous warsaw grouper.  The grouper in this photo is guessed at over 70 pounds.  Our scale only goes up to 50 pounds, so we had to guess the weight of it.  It was hard to hold it up for the picture, that was for sure.  An awesome day of bottom fishing out of Fort Lauderdale for the crew of Fishing Headquarters.

Wow, what a night.  The swordfishing was good in Fort Lauderdale last night, that’s for sure.  We actually had 2 swordfish trips last night.  One was out Friday night swordfishing trip on the Catch My Drift.  The other was a private swordfish fishing trip on one of our 6 person sportfishing boats.  We caught a whole bunch of swordfish and man was it an exciting night.  Both boats did great and caught them out there.  Here’s the story…

The Out of the Blue headed out of the inlet at about 4PM.  2 guys chartered the boat privately to themselves for a swordfish trip.  Capt. Eric and John were the crew on that trip and they were eager to go out there in search of the grandaddy of all the big game fish, Broadbill Swordfish.  Capt. Adam and Kevin were the crew on the Catch My Drift last night and they left the dock at 6PM.  The conditions were good last night and the weather was beautiful.  We couldn’t have asked for a nicer evening.  Capt. Eric and Capt. Adam put their heads together and consorted with eachother about what to do this night and where and how best to get some bites.  They decided on a plan of action and both boats had their baits set.  The boats were about a mile away from eachother, but both were fishing the same line of longitude, so both were about on the same drift.  They were set up on a small current edge they found. 

Capt. Adam on the Catch My Drift was the first to get a bite.  He hooked up with a monster of a fish.  The angler fought the fish for a long time and man, what a fight. When the fish came up to the boat, everyone guestimated him at about a 200 pounder.  The crew was all set to gaff the fish and everything was in place.  As soon as Capt. Adam grabbed the leader, the fish went balistic and started thashing wildly.  The fish was at the pulpit of the bow when he began to wire him, but suddenly swam fiercly to the stern.  Capt. Adam was literally dragged the full 85 feet toward the back of the boat.  He held on as tightly as he could, but there is no man in the world stronger than an angry 200 pound swordfish.  Before a gaff could be stuck into the fish, we pulled the hooks.  It was what we call, a Palm Beach Release.  DANG!!  Well, the rules state that if a mate or captain touches the leader, then it is a caught fish.  It wasn’t an intentional release, but heck, it was a great fish and we had it right at the boat.  And man, what a beautiful fish.  It was huge.  Fortunately, not long after, we got the hooks into another fish that night.  Later on, we caught a 100 pound swordfish that we got into the boat and brought in.  Everyone on the trip was ecstatic and everybody got to take home a ton of swordfish steaks.  It was a great Friday Night Swordfishing trip on the Catch My Drift. 

Capt. Erik had his own adventure that night.  Not one, not 2, but 3 swordfish caught on his private swordfishing charter.  He was set up a mile or so away from the Catch My Drift, pretty much along the same line of longiture and the same drift.  One of the fish was a small fish and had to be released.  The other 2 swordfish caught were both keeper sized and they got to bring both fish back to the dock.  One of the keeper swordfish was about a 70 pounder and the other was about a 110 pound fish.  There were only 2 guys on the charter, so each person got to catch their own swordfish on the trip.  It’s not often when 100% of the anglers get to land their own swordfish on a swordfishing charter.  The swordfish were certainly snapping out of Fort Lauderdale last night.  What a great couple of trips.  I wish the swordfishing was as good as it was last night every night.  Well, you can’t catch them if you never go out and try for them.  Swordfish are biting out of Ft. Lauderdale right now guys.  If you’re looking for a good time to go out there and catch swordfish, now is an excellent time.  We still have some room on next week’s trip.  Make sure to make reservations early.  Sea ya out there…

Santa Claus was good to us this year here in Fort Lauderdale.  He not only brought us toys for Christmas, but he left us a whole bunch of fish out there to catch this week.  Really good day of fishing today on all the boats.  First off, the Wednesday All Day Dolphin trip that we run every week had a killer catch.  We started off as we normally do, looking for dolphin fish offshore.  After a couple hours of not catching much, we decided to come in to try some deep water snapper fishing.  The snapper fishing had been good this week and heck, we don’t care what we catch, as long as we catch fish.  So we came in to about 200′ of water and did some deep dropping.  I’m glad we did too, because we loaded up on the snappers today.  We ended up catching over 80 vermillion snappers.  Wowsers!  We were cleaning fish for a long time when we got in from this trip.  Everyone that went got to take home a huge pile of filets for their fish fry’s tonight.  It was a fun trip and I’m glad everyone got to catch a lot of fish.  I’m thinking of renaming the Wednesday All Day Dolphin Trip to the Wednesday All Day Snapper Trip.  Just kiddin, we still always shoot for dolphin.

The sportfishing boats are catching some good ones out there too.  The deep ship wrecks have been productive with some really big golden amberjacks.  We caught this great big ole’ amberjack on a live blue runner on top of a shipwreck we know in about 300′ of water.  We also caught a 25 pound gag grouper on the same spot.  Gag groupers are normally shallow water groupers that bite up to about 250′ of water.  You don’t catch them very often in depths of around 300′ or more, so we were pleasantly suprised to see this one come in.  Along with the amberjack and groupers, there are a few big barracuda around the shipwrecks too like the one in this picture below.  He shoulda’ kept his mouth shut!  Live bait fishing around the Ft. Lauderdale, Pompano and Miami shipwrecks has been really good for us this week.  Capt. Erik caught and released a 7 foot long sailfish today on his afternoon trip, which was by far the biggest fish of the day.  I’ve heard of a few other big sailfish caught today, so they are around.  Reef fishing is rather slow right now, but there is plenty of other fishing styles to do that have been yeilding great catches.  This week we are really busy with all the folks here on vacation.  I still have a few trips open so if your looking to go this week or next, sign up early.  We’re filling up fast.  The fish are biting good, so grab some friends and Let’s Do Some Fishing!

The fishing was pretty decent today.  We went sportfishing on the Big Game, both morning and evening trips.  On the morning trip, we caught a huge sailfish almost 7 feet long.  The fish bit while kite fishing on top of the 3rd reef off Fort Lauderdale.  As soon as we got it on the line, the fish started jumping like mad.  It was a great fight and when we released it, the fish made one last jump kinda like saying goodbye.  What a cool fish.  After that, we decided to go try some wreck fishing.  We started off dropping with the little snapper rigs, but something big kept biting us off.  So we dropped a live bait on the big rod down and wammo!  Instabite giant almaco jack.  Almaco jacks are super strong and use their tall head and dorsal fins to fight you all the way to the top of the water.  Few fish can pull as hard as these can for their size.  On the late evening trip, we got to catch a big amberjack on the same shipwreck we caught the almaco on this morning.  When it got dark out, we put out the shark baits and got a huge lemon shark.  What a beast, this fish actually tried to eat the boat when he got close.  He took a big bite of the splash rail, which is right at out water line.  He let go pretty quick though when all he tasted was a big mouthful of fiberglass.  The shark left a pretty cool battle scar on the boat though(cool teeth marks).  We released the big shark-a-saurus and we watched him swim back down to the bottom.  He better keep his mouth shut next time.

The drift fishing boat did good today as well.  We got into the snappers pretty good.  Quite a few muttons snappers were caught today, along with some decent sized yellowtail snapper.  Most of the mutton snappers were too small to keep, but it was still fun fishing for and catching them.  The yellowtails turned on as soon as we got into less than 120′ of water.  It was like someone turned on a switch that started the yellowtail bite.  These guys got a nice bunch of snappers for their dinner table tonight.  The fishing has been good guys and with everyone visiting from out of town and looking for things to do on their vacation, why not take them fishing on a sportfishing or a drift fishing trip.  Let’s go fishing!

There was some good bottom fishing on the sportfishing boats today, fishing Fort Lauderdale wrecks.  We did some deep dropping on some of the shipwrecks that we’ve left in peace for far too long.  We caught quite a few groupers and lots of vermillion snappers.  It was good to see some groupers coming in.  We caught the deep water snowy groupers that we have to drop down in over 400 feet of water to get.  They take a long time to bring up from that deep, but they sure are great eating fish.  This is a photo of a couple of the bigger groupers, held by Capt. Johan and Joey. 

These other photos are of a couple other charters we’ve taken out these past couple days.  The shipwrecks in town have been holding some of these giant golden amberjacks.  Amberjacks are some of the strongest fish in the ocean and man, do they put up a great fight.  These were caught on some of the 200′ shipwrecks we have offshore of Fort Lauderdale beach.  Both of these fish are over 40 pounds.  On another great sportfishing charter, we caught this huge golden hammerhead shark.  This fish was a beast.  He fought brutally hard and after the long and taxing fight with the fish, another challenge was getting the huge fish in the boat.  We got him in the boat, and wow, what a trophy fish this one was.  There are some sea monsters swimming around Ft. Lauderdale waters these days.  Good fishing this week and the weather is great.

Sorry I have been so long since my last post on the fishing blog these past few days.  My computer was broken so I couldn’t log on to post anything.  All is fixed now though, so I should be posting regularly again.  Good fishing this past week in Fort Lauderdale.  We’ve been doing great on both the sportfishing boats and the drift fishing trips we run everyday.  The mullet(small baitfish we use) are making their annual run down the beach, and they are literally everywhere.  Every canal in Fort Lauderdale is filled with tons of mullets and we see them offshore in giant schools every day.  Put it this way, we haven’t had any trouble getting live baits to fish with this past week or so. 

Sportfishing has been particularly great this week.  The sailfish are coming through, chasing all the mullet around, so they are biting great.  We’re not catching them every single trip, but on some days we’re even catching multiples.  This is a photo from the other day.  It was a huge sailfish and it was actually hooked in the tail, so it fought twice as hard.  By the time we finally got it to the boat, the fish had died, so we brought it in.  Most sailfish we catch are all catch and release.  We caught the sailfish early on in the trip, so the customers said, “guys, we got our big game fish for the day… Lets go catch some dinner.”  So we went to one of the shipwrecks we fish just off the coast of Fort Lauderdale and we nailed a nice mess of snappers.  The snapper fishing has been really good as well.  

On another sportfishing trip this week, we caught this giant mahi mahi (dolphin fish).  Most of the dolphin we catch are between 6-12 pounds, but this one was well over 30 pounds.  We didn’t get the weight of the fish, but I guess him at about a 33-34 pounder.  There was plenty of filets on this fish and even Capt. Johan got to take a piece home for dinner.  The mahi mahi have been biting suprisingly good lately.  Most of them, as I’ve said, have been between 6-12 pounds and also the occassional monster dolphin like this one. 

The drift fishing has been good too.  Lots of snappers being caught on our day trip.  Mutton snappers between 4-10 pounds are the biggest, but also 1-3 pound yellowtails and the same sized mangrove snappers are being caught.  Deep water vermillion snappers are biting also but only when the conditions are right.  A few larger sized groupers are being caught on the half day drift fishing trips too.  Most of the groupers are red groupers, but we’ve also caught a few black groupers and snowys lately as well.  The night trips report that they’ve been getting lots and lots of yellowtail snappers.  There’s been some other snappers biting at night also like muttons and grovers, but the yellowtail have been hiting great for us.  All in all, the drift fishing AND the sportfishing has been really good fishing lately, so if you have a day off work, let’s go fishing! 

The drift fishing boats have been coming in with a great variety of fish.  Lots and lots of snappers of all varieties have been hitting the docks.  Mutton snappers, mangrove snappers, yellowtail snappers and vermillion snappers are the majority of the different snappers we’re catching out there these days.  The kingfish action has been slow, hardly any kingfish are biting at all on the reefs.  That’s usually to be expected this time of year.  Fortunately, when the kingfish aren’t biting, our fishing captains have a few other tricks up their sleeves to catch our customers some fish.  We’ve been going out deep to some of our deepwater snapper spots and dropping all the way to the bottom.  As soon as we hit down, we feel ‘ratta tat tat, ratta tat tat’.  Wind it up from the bottom and there are anywhere between 2-4 snappers on the line.  2 at a time is a fun way to catch them.

The sportfishing boats have been catching some bigger game fish.  The sailfish are still biting and we have been getting a few of them still, but the sharks are starting to come through now too.  Yesterday we caught this 5 footer.  It was a reef shark of some kind, but a nice sportfishing surprise for us.  We caught this fish on the downrigger with a live bait while fishing on top of a shipwreck in Pompano.  Also there have been some bigger amberjacks around the shipwrecks showing up lately.  Barracudas and amberjacks have been biting great out of Ft. Lauderdale.  All in all the fishing has been quite good.  This last photo was taken after an intercoastal trip where the customers just wanted to look at the houses and see the waterways.  We threw a line out really quick and wouldn’t you know it, a nice barracuda jumped on there.  Another nice fish caught out of Fort Lauderdale. 

Drift fishing in Fort Lauderdale has been the best thing going these days.  Quite a bit of action on the morning, afternoon and night fishing trips.  Our 2 day time trips have been doing really good on vermillion snappers and other critters.  What we’ve been doing is going out there and dropping down on some of our secret snapper spots in anywhere from 200-270′ deep of water.  The customers are doing good taking directions too.  Most of the fishermen put their lines out about 20 arm lengths.  Captain Vic or Captain Dale has been going over to everyone and saying, put it out another 30 arm lengths.  As soon as they do that, Bammo.  Fish on!  It works every time.

The bottom fishing has been really good and not just for snappers.  We’ve been catching a variety of different critters out there.  I’ve sen all kinds of crazy stuff come up lately.  Just a few mentionables are trigger fish, eels, an octopus and lots of little junk fish throw backs.  We even caught a spiny lobster that we threw back because it was too short.  The customer’s mouths were watering when we brought that one aboard, let me tell you.  Too bad it was a little guy.  The octopus we caught was a crazy, unexpected fish too.  The cool thing about octopi is that they change colors so fast.  As soon as you hold them next to something on the boat, they change to that exact color.  The uncool thing about octopi is that they squirt ink juice all over the place which is not so easy to get out with soap.  Anyway, there have been some cool fish biting.

 On the reef in the shallower part of the ocean we’ve been getting good action too.  But not the normal kingfish action we target.  We’ve been getting mutton snappers and yellowtail snappers.  The muttons we’ve been catching have been good size too.  Most of them 4-6 pounds with a bigger 8 or 9 pounder every now and again.  Although the kingfish action has been slow, the mahi mahi dolphin fish have been biting decent.  Almost every trip we’ve gone out on has brought in a few small dolphins.  Great fishing on the Fort Lauderdale drift fishing boats.  We run these party boat fishing trips every day so if you want to come out on one with us, just give us a call and we’ll get you out fishing.  Cya out on the water. 

The fishing was good today in Fort Lauderdale.  The Big Game had an all day trip that wanted to catch ‘big game fish’, so we decided to run way out to swordfish grounds and do some day time swordfishing.  We made our first drop setup with no success but on our second setup, we hooked into a true seamonster.  We were dropping 130 internationals with 130 braid line on it.  For 3 hours we did battle with the fish, swapping out anglers whenever they got tired and couldn’t wind anymore.  After 3 hours we ended up loosing the fish, but let me tell you, this was a true seamonster to put up such a fight on such heavy tackle.  There are some big fish around right now,  you never know what your going to catch out here.

 Our other Fort Lauderdale Sportfishing boat, the D’Nile went out today on a fun fishing trip and did some bottom fishing.  They were only out for about 2 hours, but came in with 2 big black groupers and an almaco jack.  A good day for them too.  The sportfishing in Fort Lauderdale is going great, so if you get a chance to get out on a

The Friday night swordfishing trip was a blast last night.  We had a full boat and all the guys were a lot of fun to fish with. The weather was beautiful, not a wave in the ocean and just a light breeze.  We ended up just getting one bite, but it was a good bite.  The fish didn’t bite until 1:15 in the morning, just before we were about to clear the lines to go home.  The swordfish put up a good fight and everyone was jubilant that we finally got one.  Fish was about a hundred pounder, 91″ overall.  It’s not everyday that we can go out there and come home with an 8 foot fish.  When we got back, we filleted the fish up and everyone that went got to take lots of swordfish filets home for dinner.  There was dinner for everybody.  It was a great night of swordfishing and next week should be good fishing too.  I love fishing on the week after a full moon and the week after that.  We should have good swordfishing out here in Fort Lauderdale for the next few months, so get out there if you can, the fishing is hot.