We had one helluva sport fishing trip out of Fort Lauderdale the other day.  There have been some big fish showing up, so we were expecting just about anything that day.  As we headed out the inlet to fishing grounds, I noticed a gorgeous current edge in about 350′ of water.  There was a rather strong breeze that day, so I set out 2 of our heavy wind kites and suspended some fresh live goggle eyes from them.  There have been some gigantic sharks around, so we thought it a good idea to send a rigged bloody tuna down to the bottom.  With our baits set we sat back, kept watch and waited patiently for a big game fish to show himself. 

An hour went by and still not a bite.  The water looked just too perfect for us to not have caught anything by now.  Joey was in the cockpit and yelled up, “Let’s try something else, Cap’n.”  I shouted back, “Let’s give it a few more minutes.  He’ll jump on there.”  Not a half second past by when I saw the fish.  I screamed, “Left Long!!  There he is!!”  It was a giant mahi-mahi, a bull.   The bull ate the goggle eye and swam towards one of the others.  Off the right rigger I caught sight of another dolphin fish eating the right short bait.  “Another on the right short!”, I said.   Joey and the anglers reacted quickly and hooked into both dolphins.  The bigger dolphin looked unusually large.

We had been fighting both fish for 35 minutes when the cow came within gaffing range.  Joey reached out and struck the cow dolphin with the boat gaff.  As he pulled the fish over the gunwale of the Big Game, the fish went crazy and put on quite a scuffle in the cockpit.  A few whacks with the fish bat solved that right quick.    Our other angler was still engaged with the bull, which had taken some long runs and by now a good way from the boat.  With only one fish to contend with now, we could go after the fish with the boat a bit better. 

Backing down hard with the Big Game, we finally got into range of the big bull.  Looking down from the boat, into the water, we could tell this was a monster game fish.  The big mahi used his tall, narrow head as if it were a keel and stayed obstinately parallel and a steady distance from the boat.  The power of this fish was amazing. 

By this point, the fish was spent and so was the fisherman who was fighting the brute.  The fish came within gaff range and Joey reached out and stuck him.  We were heroes.  It was an exceptional day of fishing.  One that will not be forgot.  Thanks for reading my fish story.

-Written by Capt. Rod Roydhouse 

We’ve gone out one some incredible fishing trips this past week.  Mahi-mahi, sailfish, sharks, kingfish, barracuda, you name it and we’ve caught it.  There’s an abundance of big game fish around in South Florida waters this month.  Below is a letter written in by some of our customers last week.  They chartered us for 2 days and they caught all kinds of cool fish on their trip.  I’ll post the letter with some of the photos they sent me.  Sorry I can’t post them all, there’s not enough room.  Thanks for the kind words guys and thanks for all the photos. 

      We just returned home to Toledo Ohio and went through the pictures we got on a recent trip with Captain Adam and Rod. We had a great time on 2 day trips on the private charter. Adam had asked us to send some of the pictures we got for you to post. I have been out with Adam several times now and with Joe and Rod and want to personally thank these guys, we had a great time and these guys made it even better. We caught 12 snapper, a large rainbow runner, an Albaco, a 75 pound Amberjack, 2 sailfish, a 9′ hammer head, 7 dolphin and a bunch of other fish in just 2 days. It couldn’t have been any better. I was down in January and went out with my wife and kids, this being the first trip for my 2 kids. We caught 2 sailfish, a dolphin and a 5 foot amberjack in

5 hours. ( you have several pictures of my son Joey with his amberjack on your site). Anyway here several pictures from this most recent trip with myself and 3 friends that came down there just to fish with your crew. (the group was Tom peternel, Brian Christen, Mike Stevens and Joe Dzierwa). Thanks again and good luck, see you later in the year.

Things are heating up in Fort Lauderdale.  March is the start of the spring fishing, and the fish are already biting off the chain.  Mahi-mahi are showing up in large numbers and even coming in close to the reef.  Wahoo are around if you take some time to fish for them.  Big amberjacks and groupers are biting atop the shipwrecks off our coast.  The kingfish are showing up on the reefs with a blackfin tuna or two.  We’re having some awesome deep sea fishing out there and we still have April and May ahead of us.  It’s going to be some off the scale fishing coming up.

We’ve waited for quite a while for the mahi-mahi to start showing up again for us, and finally they have returned.  Our Wednesday All day fishing trip has been caught some good size ones this week, and even the half day drift trips on the reef have run into a few schools of dolphin this week.  The big game sportfishing boats are catching the bigger dolphins though.  Wahoo, usually caught fishing offshore for mahi-mahi, are showing up pretty good.  On yesterday’s morning sportfishing charter, we went trolling offshore for mahi-mahi.  Adam caught a few small mahi-mahi, but we threw them back because they were pretty tiny.  We see a couple boats offshore of us, sitting in one spot for a while so we trolled over toward them.  They were fishing next to a floating piece of bamboo.  It looked like they were live baiting, so we kept our trolling spread out and trolled near the board.  On every pass we hooked into and caught a nice wahoo. 

The wreck fishing has been exceptionally good for us lately as well.  Amberjacks are on the wrecks in force and the spring always brings up the big ones.  If you’ve never fought an amberjack before, a 40-50 pounder will pull your arm off (at least it will feel like it).  Our sport fishing boat, the Big Game is pulling up monster amberjacks daily on the 200-250’ shipwrecks.  Occasionally a big grouper will bite also.  This photo shows the biggest grouper we’ve caught in a while.  Very nice fish guys!  All in all, there’s a lot of variety of fish biting out there right now and some monster fish to be caught.  Sea ya on the water.

After a very slow period the last few weeks, we’re starting to catch some awesome fish out there.  I’ll focus this report mostly on the drift fishing, which has gotten incredibly better.  The kingfish are back!!  We’ve missed them, but they came back to us this week in great numbers.  The morning trip has been the best for the kingfish.  We’ve also been catching a few blackfin tunas.  There have been some cool fish around.  I will write the sportfishing report in a couple days.  You will be amazed at the fish we’ve been putting on the docks this week.  But the drift fishing has improved immensly over the past few days.

Our Wednesday All Day trip this week didn’t do much for dolphin.  They caught some kings and other reef fish, but the dolphin fishing was slow for them that day.  Thursday, the very next day on our half day fishing trip, our party boat the Catch My Drift caught a pile of dolphin. The dolphin were pouring through on the reef on Thursday and we caught about 15 of them.  The Wednesday trip last week was one day too late it seemed.  Today, the sportfishing boat caught some humongous dolphins which I’ll post pictures of when I post my next report. 

There have been kingfish, dolphin, blackfin tuna, bonito and snapper on the daily party boat fishing trips.  The fishing should continue to be good for all of March, April and May.  An honorable mention has been the wreck fishing.  This week, the groupers have been hitting particularly well for us.  On this trip, we caught a 3 big snowy groupers, a few jacks and some vermillion snappers.  A nice catch of some good eating fish.  Fishing is getting awesome.  I will start updating my fishing reports more often now that the fishing is better.  Come out fishing with us!