Sorry I’ve been so infrequent with these reports.  I’m trying to get back on the bandwagon of writting these and uploading all the cool fishing photos.  It’s just time consuming, so it’s hard to do every day.  Anyway, the drift fishing in Fort Lauderdale has been outstanding this month.  All month we’ve been getting kingfish, bonito, yellowtail snappers, schoolie mahi-mahi, and even blackfin tuna.  The drift fishing has been very productive for us on the reefs lately. 

Ballyhoo, sardines and calamari are what’s on the menu for the fish these days.  I love that our boat uses dead sardines.  Most head boats do not use these wonderful little baits because they do cost a pretty penny.  They are definetly the most oily and smelly bait there is and the fish absolutely love them.  Kingfish WILL NOT turn down a beautiful dead sardine dangled in front of his mouth.  The kingfish action has on the drift fishing trips has been literally awesome.  We’ve been finding the schools of kingfish on all the daytime drift trips lately.

Night fishing has been slow for kingfish, which is why it’s so much better to go anchor fishing at night.  Much more variety is caught anchor fishing at night than drift fishing at night.  Snappers especially have been biting well, yellowtail, mutton and even mangroves.  The mangrove bite has been unbelievable this summer.  We’ve been anchoring out a little bit deeper than we used to on the night anchor fishing trip and I think we may have just stumbled onto something.  It seems the mangrove snapper, although traditionally a very shallow water snapper, actually move out into the deeper waters at night.  This is good news for us, because we’ve got some awesome spots in that depth and our customers have been bringing in some really large mangrove snappers. 

A few groupers have been hitting the docks these past few days.  I’ve seen some red groupers, black groupers and even some scamp groupers being caught lately on both the daytime and the nighttime trips.  The pool winning fish today was a big red grouper that weighed about 12 pounds.  We caught 2 others on the same trip that were so close in weight, we had to weight them down to the ounce.  That is a really good sign to see those bigger grouper showing up around Fort Lauderdale and Miami. 

Lastly, I’ll tell you all about the blackfin tuna bite.  All week, we’ve been hearing blackfin tunas have been biting down south of us in Miami.  The schools of the fish are travelling north and I think they just started showing up today.  We may have a real good blackfin tuna bite this week and next.  Get ready for some good tuna action on our day drift fishing party boat trips out of Fort Lauderdale.  Sea you out there for some good Deep Sea Fishing.

The fishing in Fort Lauderdale this summer has been very impressive.  As usual, we are getting a lot of kingfish and bonitos while trolling on the reefs.  On a 4 hour sportfishing charter, you can usually expect to limit out on kingfish these days.  They have pretty much been jumping in the boat.  On most of our half day trips, after we get everyone some action trolling the reef, we’ve been mixing it up with some bottom fishing, shark fishing and/or light tackle live baiting.  There are a lot of big game fish aroung this time of year if you spend the time fishing for them. 

Big game sharks are regarded mostly as a springtime fish, but we still catch some monsters in the summer months also.  Big dusky sharks, bull sharks, hammerheads, threshers and even the occassional mako bite this time of year.  With all the kingfish and bonitos on the reef, its no wonder why a lot of bigger sharks are swimming through the South Florida waters.  Kingfish and bonitos are their staple diet, so wherever your getting the most action on the reef is probably a good place to soak a shark bait for a half hour.  You might just catch something bigger than you are. 

Offshore trolling has been kinda slow.  We had a few good weeks of dolphin fishing out there in the beggining of the summer, but it sort of fizzled off.  You can still get lucky and find a big school of dolphin out there, but plan on being patient, because it can take a long time to find the fish out there.  Its a big ocean and your looking for a pod of fish in miles and miles of ocean.  Your definetly much better off trolling the reef for constant action and then switching over to snapper fishing or grouper fishing if you’re looking for some good eating fish. 

Blackfin tuna started showing up in Miami last week and we are just starting to hear of  few caught off Fort Lauderdale now.  Trolling is the best method to catching them this time of year, and fortunately they live right where the kingfish and bonitos do as well.  When we’re trolling the reef, the occassional wahoo jumps on the line as well, but not every day.  Wahoo are an elusive fish. 

In the coming months of September and October, we can expect to start seeing some really good sailfish action.  Sailfish season begins in September and peaks in December.  We’ll be getting sailfish all autumn and winter.  Wahoo and cobia action will pick up as well and there will be some good schools of tuna moving through.  Now is a great time to go sportfishing in Ft. Lauderdale.  Sea you out there…