\

SHARKS ARE HERE!  The shark train is coming through.  Chooo-chooo!  Every year, from February to June, a massive migration of hammerhead, bull, dusky and thresher sharks swim through our waters.  We get so many sharks and it lasts for so long, that we call it the shark train.  This is the best time of the year to go big game shark fishing.  Our sportfishing charter boats, the Big Game and the Out of the Blue have been catching some monster sharks this week.  Our biggest shark of the week was this 300 pound hammerhead shark that you see swimming in this photo.  The fish was a brutal fighter and the angler that caught it, got to experience the fight of a lifetime. 

We run a lot of shark fishing trips this season, but there are some other nice fish around this time of year also.  The mahi-mahi dolphin fish have started to show themselves again.  They don’t much care for cold water, so very few of them are usually caught in the winter months.  It’s warming up nicely here in Fort Lauderdale and so the dolphin fish should start biting better and better.  We’ve been seeing some nice dolphin caught on the Wednesday All Day Dolphin Fishing Trip and on some of our daily shared sportfishing charters.  It’s good to see some mahi-mahi biting again.

The wrecks are always active in the Spring.  Golden amberjacks are numerous around the South Florida shipwrecks right now.  Amberjacks are very strong fish and its not uncommon to catch one up to 50 pounds this time of year.  Also feeding on the small bait fish around the local shipwrecks are cobia, grouper and snapper.  Cobia and groupers are also big game fish and can be caught into the 50 pound range.  In the Spring months, you can literally catch anything because EVERYTHING is biting.  Wreck fishing can be very fun though because of the large game fish and all the action that happens.

The reef fishing isn’t bad either.  We just got finished with a relatively slow winter for reef fishing, but all that changes when things get sunny and warm again.  Kingfish are starting to bite good on the morning and afternoon drift fishing trips.  Trolling for kingfish has been very productive this week too.  On our morning trip today, we caught a  35 pound blackfin tuna which was the biggest fish caught of the trip.  We should see a few big schools of blackfin tuna off the Fort Lauderdale coast in the weeks to come. 

All in all, we’ve had some great fishing this month.  March, April and May are my 3 favorite months for deep sea fishing in Fort Lauderdale.  Sea you on the water. 

The weather has been COLD for us Florida folks this week.  I’m sure it is colder up in the northern states, but Floridians are not used to such cold weather.  The good thing about this cold weather is that the sailfish always bite good when there is a cold front coming through.  The cooler temperatures have brought the sailfish up and they are feeding good.  Most of the other surface feeders have slowed down a bit, but they’ll be back soon when the temperatures warm up.  But sailfish is what’s hot right now.  The Ft Lauderdale sportfishing boats are catching sailfish great this month, so it’s a great time to get out on a charter if you really want to get a sailfish.  This is the tail end of the sailfish season, so this is pretty much your last month to have a really good shot at catching one. 

Sailfish are one of those species that’s around throughout the year here in Ft Lauderdale.   The best bite on them is the winter though.  I would say that we catch over 70% of all the sailfish we catch in a year in the months of November through February.  You can catch a sailfish in the hottest months of August and September, but you have a lot better chances in the winter season.  The sailfish we’ve been catching on our sportfishing charters this year have been beauties.  Almost all of them have been 6-7 feet long and sometimes even a bit bigger.  They are by far the most fun fish to catch because of all the jumping they do when they’re on the line. 

Sailfish aren’t the only fish biting in Ft Lauderdale right now.  The wrecks have been holding some pretty nice fish too.  Big amberjacks and some nice grouper are being caught around the 200-300′ shipwrecks we have in our area.  Wreck fishing is fun, because you can literally catch just about anything and you never know what you have on the line until you get him to the boat.  Big game sharks have begun to show up as well.  We’ve started to catch a few hammerhead sharks, a few bull sharks and even a couple mako sharks in the last couple weeks.  The sharks will be migrating through our waters throughout the months of February until late May.  In recent years, the shark fishing has gotten better and better out here.  Spring fish are on their way, so get ready for some awesome action.  It’s going to be an awesome fishing season in Ft Lauderdale.  Sea ya on the water.