The deep sea fishing was great off Ft Lauderdale this week.  The drift boats have been catching kingfish after kingfish after kingfish.  There have been a lot of kingfish on the reef.  Action has been good on our morning and afternoon drift fishing trips.  The night tirp has been great for snappers of all species.  Yellowtails, mangorves and mutton snappers are what we are targeting on our night anchor trips, but we catch a million other types of bottom fish too.  Pretty much fishing in general has been great. Sportfishing trips are coming in with some really awesome big game fish this week.  Big kingfish, bull dolphin, wahoo, and a few tuna.  There have been some humongous sharks and a few sailfish caught this week as well.  Great fishing in Fort Lauderdale this week.

Our morning and afternoon drift fishing trips have been going out all week, despite the bad weather.  It’s been rainy, but otherwise pretty calm out on the ocean.  The fish are already wet, they don’t care if it’s raining!  We’ve been drifting in about 120′ of water and the kingfish action has been constant.  A few kingfish here and there and then we’ll get slammed by a big school of kingfish and then everyone is hooked up.  Those fishermen fishing with bottom fishing rigs have been catching a couple muttons and a few yellowtail.  But I always reccomend fishing with a kingfish rig on the daytime trip.  Kingfish are such fun to catch because take out fast runs on the drag and they are so much bigger than snappers.  If you want to snapper fish, go out on the night trip.  We anchor and target snappers so you will catch a lot more of them than drifting the reef.

The night fishing trips are coming in with some really good catches of snappers.  Yellowtails are biting pretty good, there are soom mangroves mixed in and the muttons are starting to bite good out there too.  Not every night is a mutton night, but we’ve had some good mutton snapper catches this week.  Some time in the next month, we’re going to have the big mutton spawn and we’re going to have some off the scale nights of mutton snapper fishing.  The mutton snappers alway spawn around the June full moon here in Fort Lauderdale, and in the past few years during the mutton spawn, we’ve limited out on mutton snappers.  And all big ones too.   

Sportfishing has been absolutely great.  I love fishing in May and June.  There’s so much life out there on the reefs.  Baitfish are all over the place.  Kingfish are piling through the baitfish schools and gorging themselves.  There are tunas, bonitos and mahi-mahi coming in on the reef.  Wahoo too are starting to show up good out there.  There’s a lot of action.  Kitefishing on the days with some wind is great too.  Monster sharks are migrating this month.  We’ve been getting some hammerhead sharks, thresher sharks, mako sharks and a couple bull sharks.  Kite fishing has also been great for sailfish.  We’ve had a hellatious spring fishing season.  Some very large bull dolphin coming in close to only 200′ of water.  That’s stuff you only see this time of year deep sea fishing off Fort Lauderdale.  All in all, exceptional fishing this month.  Tight lines everyone.  Sea ya on the water.  

It was a beautiful night on the Friday Night Swordfishing Trip this week.  The weather was superb, and the fishing wasn’t half bad either.  We started off trolling offshore, out to swordfish grounds.  We hooked into and caught one small dolphin on the way offshore.  It was a little 5 or 6 pounder.  Captain Adam found a nice little color change offshore.  It’s still daylight out till almost 9 PM these days, and the days are getting longer.  Captain Adam and his mate Josh assisted everyone with getting their lines and buoys set. 

It wasn’t long before we got the first bite.  It ate the flat line, the one bait we had only 30 feet off the back of the boat.  It wasn’t a big swordfish, but a swordfish none-the-less.  We caught him in about 20 minutes.  It was strong for such a small one.  We had him on our closest line, which was also our lightest tackle rod accordingly.   The fish was almost legal, only an inch short.  We pulled the fish up and released him. 

We didn’t have to bring any of the other lines in.  The fish stayed remarkably clear of everything else we had out there.  We got our second fish on about and hour later.  This one bit the mid depth bait, which was baited with a tinker mackeral.  This fish seemed much bigger and fought for a good 20-30 minutes.  This second swordfish was plenty big enough to bring in.  We fished for a couple more hours, but besides a few slashed squids, we never got another decent bite.  Any swordfishing trip when you go 2 for 2 is a good trip.  Thanks to everyone that came and we look forward to fishing with you again. 

P.S.  Just to let everyone know, we are running an 8 hour Snapper fishing anchor trip this Friday night, May 15 from 8PM - 4 AM, if anyone wants to come.  The price is only $50 per person, and includes everything.  We still have plenty of open spots and the snapper fishing has been very good for us lately.  This is the first 8 hour open boat snapper fishing trip we’ve run on the Catch My Drift.  It may be a new monthly trip for us.  Sea you out there.

May is here and what a beautiful month.  The action in Fort Lauderdale this month has been on the reef.  Sure, there are some dolphin biting here and there offshore, but they have been few and far between.  Kingfish are biting like mad just a mile our shore, so we haven’t ventured out too much farther than that.  My dad always said to me, “The first rule of fishing is never leave fish to find fish.”  Kingfishing in on the 80′-150′ reefs has been action packed this month, and I’m looking forward to an action packed summer as well.  Our 4 hour drift fishing trips are bringing in some very nice catches of king mackerals(kingfish), and snappers.  There have been a few mahi-mahi and groupers mixed in also. 

From now until the end of September, is about the best few months for our drift fishing boat, the Catch My Drift.  The kingfish, bonito and tuna drive a major migration through our waters this season.  Snappers too, are thick in the late spring and early summer with the mutton and mangrove spawn.  There’s always a variety of fish to be caught on all our different fishing trips.

The sportfishing boats are getting their fair share of the reef action too.  The sportfishing boats, by dragging live baits around the reef, are catching some humongous kingfish.  King fish average 4-10 pounds, but can actually grow to over 50 pounds.  We don’t get the kingfish over 30 pounds very often, but it’s awesome when we do.  This week, our sportfishing boats have coming in with a few awesome catches of giant kingfish.  And of coarse, whenever you are deep sea fishing in kingfish waters, you also have good chances at sailfish, tuna and wahoo.  A few big wahoos have hit the docks this week also. 

Well, that’s the fishing report for this week.  Great fishing on all the boats.  Fishing is actually pretty easy when the fish are biting this good.  Thanks for reading my fishing report and I hope to sea you all out there fishing.  Tight lines.

The kingfish have shown up off Ft Lauderdale, in a huge explosion of fish.  Kingfish of all sizes, 3 pounders to 25 pounders, are biting like mad in the 80′-150′ depths.  The drift fishing boat trips on the reef are coming in with big numbers of kingfish these days.  They are chasing the baitfish schools of sardines and herring that we’ve seen all over the reefs.

Then kingfish have been travelling the reef in large schools, made up of hundreds of fish.  We’ll be fishing a spot for a while with slow action, when POW!…  a huge school of kingfish will swim through our baits and eat every line we have over the side.  They say that ‘fishing’ is hours and hours of boredom, interrupted by a moment of panic.  It can be really exciting and fun.

Kingfish aren’t the only fish biting out there.  With the several days of east wind that’s been blowing out there, the mahi-mahi have been starting to show up on the reef as well.  Those boats drifting or trolling the reef are finding small pods of schoolie mahi-mahi.  The fish have been small in size, only 3-6 pounds, but that’s the size that’s common this time of year.  As we get into June, we’ll begin to see the huge schools of mahi-mahi offshore.

The night fishing has been slow on kingfish, but full of non-stop action.  The night anchor fishing has been awesome for snappers of all sorts, but especially yellowtail snappers.  Some big mangrove and mutton snapper are being caught also.  It takes a bit of time to get a good chum slick out there working for you.  But once you get a good bite started, as soon as your bait hits the bottom you’ll start getting hits.  All in all it’s turning into a great season and May looks like it will bring even more nice fish out way.  If you’ve got a free day and an itch to go fishing, check out one of our deep sea fishing trips and Let’s Go Fishing!  Sea you on the water…