The Friday Night Open Boat Swordfishing trip, this past Friday night, was a blast.  We only had 6 people, but everybody paid a few dollars more so the boat could go out.  The seas were rough that night on the way out to fishing grounds.  We got broadsided twice by a huge wave.  That was what it was like for about the first half hour, and if it had continued like that, we probably would have turned back.  Well, as we got out farther, the ocean started laying down and it got really nice out.  The waves were only like 4′ when we stopped to fish, which isn’t bad on a boat as large as Catch My Drift.  Well, we started sending out the baits and low and behold a big mahi mahi starts jumping not too far from the boat.  He was jumping straight for us, so Capt. Adam quickly grabs the gaff out of the rod holder and snabs up the fish.  It was about a 20 pound mahi mahi.  So Capt. Adam actually got to catch the first fish that night.

Once we had all the baits out again, we get a nice bite on the tip line.  Hooked up!  We fight the fish up to the boat in about 10 minutes.  It was a windy night and we were getting pushed away from the fish, so the fight was twice as hard.  When we got him to the boat, the fish was a couple inches short so we released him.  So, we set back up and after a little while we get hooked up on something really nice.  Now this was a big fish.  It was stripping line off the reel almost as fast as the fish last week did.  We don’t usually do this, and only had a few people on the boat so it was easier to do, but we reeled everything in and chased the fish down.  We got the fish up to the surface and when he came into range, we harpooned him.  It was a sweet shot.  Adam ran down from the wheelhouse and stuck the big flying gaff into him and brought him aboard.  It was a slob of a swordfish.  The fish probably weighed closed to 200 pounds. 

By then, it was time to go in.  We caught 2 for 2 that night on swordfish.  The swordfish are biting out there.  The week before this trip, we had 6 big swordfish on the line, but only managed to catch 2 of them.  The bite has been red hot, so hopefully this week and next week, we’ll have a good Friday Night Swordfishing trip.  Sea ya out there on the water.

Well, I forgot to give a fishing report for last Friday Swordfishing trip and man it was a doosy!  Well, as soon as we got out there and got our first bait in the water, ZINGGGG!!!  Big swordfish, hooked up!  We caught the fish in about a 1/2 hour, good fighter.  I forget the forklength, but it was about an 80 pounder.  A short while later, we get another bite.  Swordfish hooked up again.  This fish we caught quick, probably only a few minute fight.  The fish was undersized, so we released him.  We get set up again and Wammo!  Another big fish.  The fish is coming to the boat for the first few minutes of the fight, so Adam thought it was a smaller fish.  When the fish gets just so we can see the light in the distance, he takes off.  The fish takes a run from hell.  He striped off line so fast off that 50W that the drag was actually smoking.  There wasn’t much line left on the reel, we could see the knot on the bottom of the spool and we still had a lot of lines out still fishing so chasing the fish down was not an option.  As if we didn’t have enough going on at the time, one of the other lines on the boat get a bite and its another BIG fish.  This fish starts screeming line off too.  We had this fish on an 80, but it was spooling us as well.  Well, we were about to get to the knot on the first fish, so Capt. Adam tightened the drag a nudge.  Immediately the hooks pulled, a total bummer.  A few seconds later, we pulled the hooks on the other fish.  It was heartbreaking to loose those 2 fish, no telling what they were.  They were probably a couple of huge swordfish, but we never got to see the fish.  You never know, could have been a giant tuna or a huge mako shark.  We’ll never know.  It would have been sweet to catch one or both of them though.

All that action wasn’t even the end of it for that night.  We got 2 more fish on that evening, but pulled the hooks on both of them.  Well, we brought one back home, so everyone had plenty of swordfish filets to take home with them.  It was a great night last week, very exciting.  2/6 on swordfish, with one brought in and one released.  Let me apologize for not putting the camera on the boat the night they went out.  I forgot to before the trip and I’m kicking myself now for not having any photos of the swordfish.  These photos of the hammerhead shark hanging were from our Friday night swordfishing trip 2 weeks ago.  We didn’t catch any swordfish that night, the fishing was slow.  But we did catch this monster hammerhead shark.  Here’s a photo of the 2 guys that caught the fish, what a nice one.  We’re going out swordfishing tommorrow night, so I hope the fishing is as good as last week was.  We’ve still got a couple open seats if anyone wants to go on Friday Night’s trip.  This last photo is a big grouper we caught on one of our sportfishing charters.  Its about a 25 pound black grouper that we caught bottom fishing around one of our shipwrecks here in Fort Lauderdale.  The sportfishing has been good in South Florida this past month and we’re getting into my favorite time of year to fish.  Let’s go fishing!

Awesome fishing this past week off Fort Lauderdale.  Theres been some awesome fish out there biting.  The sportfishing boats have been doing the best lately with good to great catches everyday.  Weather has been a bit bleak these past few days, but it looks like this front is moving on and the weather will be beautiful again by mid week.  Heres a couple pictures of fish we caught recently on our Fort Lauderdale Fishing Charters. 

The photo above was a really big sailfish we caught last week some time.  This fish put up a brutal fight for almost 45 minutes.  Capt. Adam and Rod were on the boat that day.  The same day on their other trip that day the guys caught and released 2 sailfish.  The sailfishing has been great for the past few weeks.  This cold weather has pushed some big fish up to the surface.  We’ve been catching one or two sailfish a trip during this cold front we’re having right now, but don’t expect this awesome bite to last long.  We’ll probably have good sailfishing for the next couple weeks though. 

Sailfish aren’t the only big fish biting out there.  We’ve been getting some bigger pelagic fish too.  This photo with a father and son with a big wahoo they caught trolling lures offshore.  The wahoo was about a 45 pounder, which is a great big one around here.  Wahoo are generally a rare fish that we catch, but when the conditions are right, we have been known to catch a big one now and again.  We’ve been getting a few big wahoos lately and some big mahi mahi dolphins too.  Several dolphin over 30 pounds have hit the docks this week.  The drift boats are even getting a few dolphins lately. 

This is a picture of a guy we had out the other day while he was catching a sailfish.  I just liked the photo with the sun in the background and him all intense while he’s fighting the fish.  The photo below was a huge hammerhead shark we just caught.  There have been some big hammerheads caught lately and that just means one thing.  Shark fishing is here early this year.  Book your shark fishing trips now.  1 mile off Fort Lauderdale we catch some monster sharks.  Hammerhead, thresher, mako, bull, sand bar, lemon, etc… we catch some big sharks out here.  Anyway, shark season lasts till about August so if your looking to catch something your own size or bigger, we are experts at big game shark fishing.  Really good fishing this week, don’t let the weather scare you, this front is about gone.  Cya out there.

The drift boats have been doing great with some nice catches of bottom fish and mahi mahi and kingfish.  Our 2 daytime drift fishing trips have been coming in with some good catches these past few days.  Suprisingly, there have been some really big groupers caught while fishing off Fort Lauderdale.  On this trip, we caught about a 40 pound warsaw grouper.  Everyone was ecstatic after catching this one.  On that same trip, we also caught a really big sailfish, about a 7 footer, that we released.  The fishing around some of the shipwrecks that we fish everyday has been yeilding red groupers, black groupers and even warsaw groupers. 

The mahi mahi and kingfishing has been getting pretty good lately too.  Still not red hot, but there are a few fish to be caught out there.  The mahi mahi don’t bite every trip.  Usually we’ll be catching some kingfish and some snappers and then suddenly someone sees a yellow or a turquoise fish swimming around the boat.  Everyone yells, “Dolphin!” and throws their lines to it.  Typically, whenever you see a dolphin, there will be 2 or 3 more with him and sometimes a whole school.  Anyway, there have been some small schools of dolphin biting and the kings are biting decent again finally too.  Pretty good fishing out of Ft. Lauderdale these days, so Lets Go Fishing!

It was a great week of night anchor fishing off Fort Lauderdale.  We caught a nice load of yellowtail snappers every night this week.  Our night trip has always been our best open party drift fishing trip for action.  The reason is that on the night trip, we anchor fish for yellowtails and mutton snappers as well as the other multitudes of bottom fish.  The day time trips we drift fish on the reef for kingfish and mahi mahi.  The day trips we tend to catch larger fish but nowhere near as many fish as the night trips.  The night trips we usually catch a lot more fish and we get the most action, but the fish we catch at night are mostly snappers which are small fish(But GOOD eating!). 

I personally love to anchor fish for yellowtails.  As soon as you hit the bottom, you are getting bites.  We always get fish at night, even when the fishing is slow.  At night, we get a lot of fish like grunts and squirrelfish, triggerfish and toros, chubs and porgies, and even on occassion the small white spotted sharks.  Snapper is what we’re after though and we usually come in with a good snapper catch.  Yellowtails are what we catch the most of and they are by far the best tasting snapper that I’ve ever eaten. 

Mutton snapper are a highly sought after snapper at night too.  We catch a few nice muttons here in Fort Lauderdale.  While the yellowtails are usually between 1-3 pounds, the mutton snappers are usually between 6 and 10 pounds.  Muttons are actually considered a game fish, even though they are a great eating fish.  They both hang out in the same areas and they both love to eat the same baits. 

At night we use a lot of squid and sardines for bait.  We also use ballyhoo and silversides as bait for the snappers.  For yellowtails, muttons and mangrove snappers, we like to anchor in spots around 40-80′ of water and chum the water with ground up fish parts for scent.  It works well for us.  We’ve been getting a lot of fish on the day trips too.  Some good catches of mahi mahi and there have been some big groupers around.  but this post of the fishing report/ fishing blog is about night fishing, so if you are looking for a great trip for action, try out a night fishing trip.

We’ve had a very cool week of fishing here in Fort Lauderdale these past few days.  The drift fishing had been very slow during the week after Christmas, but the fishing has gotten much better this past week.  Yesterday and today, we actually had a couple really good trips.  I saw the party boat catch a bunch of yellowtail snappers and some nicer mutton snappers too.  Among the snappers were some very nice kingfish caught as well.  Kingfish have been all but extinct for us these past 3 weeks.  We caught a few here and a few there, but for the most part, not many were caught.  This week though, the kings were biting almost every day. 

On yesterday’s afternoon trip, we had a real good catch.  One of the guys on the boat, Ed McGee from West Islip, NY caught a 20 + pound kingfish.  He was using a rod and reel combo that he brought down to use from his tackle store, Saltwaters Tackle Inc.  He caught the biggest fish of the trip that day and won the pool.  Pretty work on your kingfish Ed, it was a very nice one.  Garcia, one our regulars, got to catch 2 real nice mutton snappers.  He was fishing the bottom obviously.  The other guys on the boat caught stuff too.  I saw a nice pile of yellowtail snappers caught and some bigger bonitos.  Its good to see some nice fish being brought in. 

There were a couple of really nice fish caught this week on the Sportfishing boats as well.  Capt. Adam caught a huge hammerhead shark on one of his Ft. Lauderdale shark fishing charters.  He went out to his favorite shark spot, about 2 miles offshore and chummed the water up with some very bloody baits.  It didn’t take long to get the bite and they ended up catching a huge hammerhead shark out there.  Its good to see hammerheads showing up so early in the season this year.  There are also some other nice gamefish biting off Fort Lauderdale.  Around the shipwrecks especially, there have been big amberjacks, barracuda and even a few big groupers.  On the reef, we’ve been catching some kingfish and mahi mahi.  Yes, the fishing has been productive for us lately. 

The fishing will continue to get better and better for us as we go from winter fishing to the transition of spring.  The mahi mahi will keep biting better as will the big game sharks, wahoo and groupers.  Sailfish will still be biting for the next couple months, but they will eventually start to bite slower as we get out of the prime winter sailfishing season.  I think that the swordfishing will be good the next couple weeks.  We still have a few spots for the Friday night swordfishing trip this Friday night, if anyone wants to come.  Beautiful weather, good fishing and excellent big fish catching…. I love South Florida.

Here’s Dave Mullen and his daughter Bethany with their monster hammerhead shark. 

We had a lot of holiday vacationers here over the Christmas holiday this year.  I have hardly had time to keep up on my posts this week, so this one is a few fish we caught over the Christmas Holiday Season.  For the most part, the saifish were biting really good.  We caught them on more than a few days this holiday season.  The weather was gorgeous and there was just enough wind to get the kites up.  On most days, we went out to the reef or a color change and put the kites up.  The sailfish were biting pretty good.  If you sat there with the kites up for a couple hours, you were gonna get a bite on one.  None of the bait boats that sell bait were going out for live baits, so we went out ourselves in the wee hours of the morning to catch goggle eyes.  Goggle eyes only bite at night and they bite the best right before sunup, so you have to go fishing for them at like 3:30 AM.  Well, it took a lot of coffee, but we caught enough live goggle eyes to catch quite a few sailfish suring these weeks.

Here’s the Shotton Family fighting a big game fish.

Sailfish weren’t the only fish on the menu during those last couple weeks in December.  The bottom fishing around the shipwrecks was going really good too.  We were going from wreck to wreck and dropping live baits to the bottom.  The result:  a couple huge warsaw groupers and some nice snowy groupers and gag groupers too.  We were getting some really nice groupers over the Christmas holidays.  Swimming right there with the big groupers, were some big amberjacks and barracuda.  We caught several very nice golden amberjacks over these couple weeks and big barracudas too.

Here’s Brad, Debbie, Zach, Jared and Nate.

The fishing yesterday and today was also very good.  The drift fishing boat came in with perhaps the best catch.  They caught a bunch of snappers.  Most of the snapper were the 1-2 pound yellowtail but there were 2 nice muttons caught also.  Surpisingly, we actually got a couple kingfish today as well.  The kingfishing has been really slow but today there were a few caught.  We even caught a couple bonitos today.  Looks like the reef fishing is getting better.  I heard quite a few sailfish caught today as well as good action on mahi mahi and a couple wahoos.  I still don’t have a trip for tommorrow yet.  I’ll probably go fun fishing if I don’t get a trip.  It’s no fun sitting at the docks when the fish are biting. 

Here’s the Kimberlins with their big sailfish.

Today was an exciting day for us.  We went out on just a regular half day charter off Fort Lauderdale.  It was a windy day, but I love fishing on days when its breezy.  The fish get all turned on and hungry for some reason.  Anyway, we went out and set up for kite fishing at one of our favore areas, just outside of Port Everglades inlet.  We were fishing in about 130 feet of water and we had live mullet on the long baits and a couple of tasty goggle eyes on th short baits.  We’ll we were about an hour into kite fishing with no bites yet, so Capt. Adam starts thinking about trying something different like bottom fishing or trolling.  My brother, Rod was the mate that day and when Adam asked him what he though about trying something different, Rod yelled back up, “Let’s give it a few more minutes Cap’.”

We’ll a few minutes was well worth it, because the baits started going crazy.  The left long was freaking out, swimming hard to the south, trying to get away from something. The left short was going ballisic and jmping out of the water.  Just then, right where the left short used to be, we saw a tiny pop on the surface of the water.  The ribbon shot down deep and fast and  he clicker was singing.  Rod grabbed the rod out of the rocket launcher and locked it up.  This fish alreay knew it was hooked.  Rod started winding and Capt. Adam put the boat ahead to hook the fish.  The line popped free of the pressure release clip on the kite line and came tight right to the rod.  The angler grabbed the pole and started fighting the fish.  The fish felt heavy but it wasn’t until the angler said,there isn’t much line left on the reel to Rod.  Rod bent over the anglers shoulder and looked at the spool.  He turned ghost white an yelled to Adam, “Back Down!  Back Down!”  There was almost no line left on the reel and the fish had yet to even slow down from his run. 

The boat went full astern and just before the end of the spool, the fish slowed down and eventually stopped taking line.  Still backing down on the fish, we gained back the entire spool, one crank at a time.  It was a brutal fight.  The fish took several massive runs during the hour long it took the angler to get the fish up to the boat.  When the fish came up within gaff shot, he was fairly tired.  Its always a crucial time when the fish gets near the boat.  The distance between the fish and rod tip is a lot shorter so small movements by the fish create large changes in the angle of the hook.  Not to mention the fish can always dart under the boat and cut us off in the props or the bottom of the boat.  We always keep the boat ahead when a fish comes up, but there isn’t any boat in the world that can run faster than an angry yellowfin tuna can if he wanted to.  Rod stuck the gaff perfectly into the fishes left gill.  He was really on his game with this fish. 

What a beauty, it was about a 75 pound yellowfin tuna.  We rarely ever see or hear about a yellowfin being caught out of Fort Lauderdale so this fish was a real treat.  I have personnally never caught a big yellowfin out of Fort Lauderdale.  I’ve caught them in the Bahamas many times, but never in Ft Lauderdale.  This was definetly my brother’s biggest yellowfin tuna ever caught and I’ll bet Capt. Adam’s biggest as well.  What a beautiful fish and congratulations guys on a great catch.  The cold weather this week has brought up some very cool and interesting fishing this week so get out there if you can.  The fish don’t bite like this very often.