It’s been a really good Christmas week for the fishing boats in South Florida.  We had some good weather and a couple good fishing trips as well.  The bottom fishing around the shipwrecks has been going off.  Big amberjacks are starting to show up on the deep shipwrecks.  We’ve been doing a lot of bottom fishing on our trips, dropping live bonitos and blue runners.  The sucess has been good for us.  A lot of almaco jacks in the 10-15 pound range, and a big 25-40 pound amberjack from drop to drop.  This week we’ve also been catching a rare and wonderful gamefish called the Warsaw grouper. 

Warsaw groupers are huge groupers that live in 150-500′ of water around shipwrecks and other bottom structure.  We have a few good runs of them annually and it appears the warsaws are beginning to bite now.  We’ve caught 2 big warsaws in the last couple days, and whenever you start catching a couple, there are more around.  One of the warsaws was about 70 pounds and the other was about 60 pounds.  These are awesome game fish in Ft Lauderdale and put on a hell of a fight.  Not only groupers are biting, but also snappers.  While we’re sitting atop the wreck with a big grouper bait, we also like to drop chicken rigs for snappers.  Red snapper are great eating and a fun way to catch fish while waiting for the big one to eat. 

The deep wrecks are alive with fish and so are the shallow wrecks.  Wrecks in 40-60 foot of water are holding a lot of yellowtail and mutton snappers.  Our night anchor trips aboard the Catch My Drift are reporting good snapper action on the shallow water wrecks.  With lots of snappers around the shallow spots, barracuda are moving in.  Sportfishing with live tunas around the shallow wrecks is a fun way to get a big barracuda and a helluva fight.  Barracuda are hellatious fighters on light tackle.  All in all, there’s good fishing in the Fort Lauderdale area.  Let’s go fishing!

It’s been some good fishing this week on the Fishing Headquarters boats this week.  The sailfish are still biting good out there.  All week, actually all month, the sailfish have been thick out there.  This has been a banner year for sailfish off the coast of South Florida.  All the sailfish we’re catching are big ones, about 7 feet long.  The sailfish are biting the best on our afternoon trips lately.  Morning trips have had their fair share of sailfish, but the best catches lately have been in the PM. 

Sailfish aren’t the only fish biting out there.  Mahi-mahi and wahoo are starting to show up in 300′-400′ of water.  Wahoo are an incredible game fish and are known as the fastest fish in the ocean.  They are known for taking the bait and screaming line off the reel so fast that it makes the reel smoke.  Wahoo are a beautiful fish too.  When they first come out of the water, they have blue, silver and black vertical stripes the length of the body of the fish.  The colors generally fade quickly after you catch them and by the time you reach the dock, they are completely silver with barely noticable stripes.  They are one of the best eating fish out here.  Winter is prime time for big wahoos and you can catch them anytime you’re trolling and/or using live baits. 

The drift boat fishing has been very good lately too.  Our drift fishing boat, the Catch My Drift has been catching a good deal of kingfish and snappers on their morning and afternoon trips.  With slightly cold weather around, the kingfish should be biting good for us the next month or better until it gets warmer.  Kingfish have been the majority of our catch lately on the party boat trips.  Snappers are biting also, and have been showing up in better and better numbers.  Let’s hope the fishing is good over the Christmas Holiday. 

The action has slowed down a bit on the reef this past week in Ft Lauderdale.  A lot of the reef fish like kingfish and bonitos didn’t bite that well for us this week as opposed to last week when they were biting good.  Fortunately, the sailfish are still biting great on our sportfishing trips.  Fort Lauderdale is always a hot spot for sailfish action in the winter time, and this year is no exception.  The constant cold weather this year has really gotten the sailfish hungry.  The sailfish are biting best in about 150′-200′ of water, just offshore of the Ft Lauderdale artificial reef that runs along our coast.  Goggle eyes and mullet are my favorites for sailfishing using the kite method. 

Sailfish are a top gamefish and whenever they are biting, it’s a good bet that there are some other bigger game fish around as well.  Sharks usually show up for us starting in February and stay biting throughout the spring and into the summer.  Sharks are beginning to show up out there as well.  This month, we’ve had a few special shark fishing trips where we strictly target sharks and other sea monsters.  We haven’t caught any of the humongous sharks that we usually catch later in the year, but there are some good sized hammerheads and silky sharks around.  Basically, the same tactics that work for catching sailfish, work too for catching sharks.  Kite fishing is my method of choice, but make sure you are using a wire leader.  Sharks can bite through monofilament like a knife through warm butter. 

Offshore dolphin fishing has been good for us this week also.  The mahi-mahi we’re catching have been medium to small sized ones, but there are lots and lots of them when you hit a good school.  Not every trip we take offshore is going to be a great day for dolphin.  In fact, it’s more of a 50/50 shot out there.  Our Wednesday All Day Dolphin Trip this week went offshore for the first few hours of the trip and didn’t catch a thing.  Without a fish in boat by 11 o’clock, we came in on the reef to change tactics and hopefully get some fish.  When we came in on the reef, we caught over 20 nice kingfish.  The funny thing was that no dolphin were caught trolling offshore, but we did manage to catch one nice dolphin mixed in with those kingfish in 100′ of water. 

 Not every trip for this time of year is going to be action packed with fish.  There are fewer fish around in the winter, but the trade off is that most of the fish we catch are very big.  Sailfish, sharks, mahi-mahi, tuna, wahoo and cobia are the big game species we’re going to be catching for the next month.  Christmas week fishing is going to be really busy, so make sure to make your reservations early.  Sea ya out there…

 Fort Lauderdale has been great for the sailfish this year.  There have been a lot of fish caught on our sportfishing charters. There has been some very cold weather which always brings the sailfish up to the surface.  I’ve seen a lot of free jumping sailfish on the edge of the gulfstream this wee.   Free jumpers are always a good indication of the level of sailfish activity in our waters.  The Catch MY Drift has caught and released A lot of sailfish this week, but our sportfishing boats are catching the big numbers on sailfish. 

This is very late in the season for mahi-mahi, but they are still biting strong.  There are still some nice schools of mahi-mahi swimming along the 200’ edge and bigger dolphin are biting farther offshore.  The Big Game has thrown some awesome catches of dolphin on the dock this month. Wahoo and tuna are biting offshore also.  They are usually caught while kite fishing for sailfish or high speed trolling offshore.  They are always a nice treat. 

Head boat fishing on the reef has been very productive also.  The smoker kings are biting on most of our half day trips.  There are a lot of regular sized kingfish around with the bigger ones.    Cobia are starting to bite for us.   We’re catching them on the night and the day trips.  Cobia always seem to bite right around this time of year.  They follow the mullet down the beaches.

 Night anchor fishing has been the best way to catch snappers.  The Saturday Night anchor trip has been the best catch, because the snapper bite has been the best later in the evenings.  Yellowtail, mangrove, and muttons snapper are all being caught on our night anchore fishing trips.  The sharks are beginning to show up on the reefs too at night.  We’ve caught a couple little tiger sharks, black tips, and cuban night sharks.  Not bad fishing at all.  Sea ya out there on the ocean everybody!

Fishing off Fort Lauderdale over the past month has provided a lot of good fishing action.  The best mahi-mahi excitement all year, followed by numberous sailfish.  Most days kite fishing has been the way to go.  Unless the wind is too light, and then trolling live or dead baits is effective.

Although we catch them often, this time of year not everyday is action packed with dolphin and sailfish.  Some days, not many game fish are around and other means are neccessary for a good catch.  For example, bottom fishing on our numerous artificial reefs can yeild good catches of snapper, grouper and amberjacks.

One trip a few days ago, I was fishing with a group from Texas.  They had their hearts set on catching sailfish and dolphin.  Out of 6 charter boats out that afternoon, no one even saw a sailfish or dolphin out there.  After giving a good attempt at kite fishing, we fished 3 of our best producing wrecks with no success.  As time was running out, it looked like our day was going to be a bust.  Rod, my mate, said “Don’t worry.  We have one last spot to try and we’ve saved the best for last”.  Port Everglades inlet is dredged out to make it deep enough for the big ships to enter and depart.  On either side, there is a very steep ledge that goes from 45′ of water, right up to 12′.  The upwelling of currrents makes it a home or temporary feeding place to many fish.  We tossed out  live bonito on a 20lb. spinning rod and pulled t along the “ledge”.  Suddenly an explosion on the surface of the water, and the sound of drag screaming off the reel.  We never saw the fish, jsut the splash. 

Our customer grabbed the rod and began to fight the fish.  After 20 minutes of fighting the fish, I looked down and said, “Ya got 2 minutes,  Buddy”.  Everyone thought I was joking, but I wasn’t.  There was a huge tanker ship exiting the port and he was headed right at us.  We steered clear and narrowly missed the tanker ship and amazingly kept the fish hooked.  An hour later, and after scrambling around 3 different ships, we caught and released a 7 foot lemon shark on 20# test line.  A great fishing feat that made memories of a lifetime for our clients from Texas.