The summertime slaughter of bonitos is about over. We’re still catching some smaller ones on the drift fishing trips, but the big, tackle buster bonitos seem to have moved on. September is the month for kingfish in Fort Lauderdale. The kingfish we’re catching out there have been very nice sized and are averaging 12-15 pounds. We’re looking forward to the smoker kingfish showing up for the September-October bite. Yesterday on a late day trip aboard the Mary B III, Capt. Kevin had a great trip with a 7 foot sailfish, a big bull dolphin, 2 blackfin tunas, some bonitos and boxful of nice yellowtail snapper. Great job to Kevin and crew and all the anglers.
The snapper fishing the last 2 weeks has been very good, during the day and the night trips. Muttons have been averaging 5-8 pounds and the yellowtails have been 2-3 pounds. There has been an abundance of Warsaw groupers biting on the shipwrecks. Our drift fishing boats and the sportfishing boats are catching them when the conditions are good for wreck fishing. Warsaws are one of the largest groupers that we catch and are allowed to keep. They average 40-60 pounds and are very good eating. Late summer and early fall are always hot months for these groupers.
Wreck fishing in general has been very good for us. Vermillion snappers are loaded up on the shallow wrecks. These fish give us an easy way to catch all our customers enough fish for dinner, without spending much time. Some big game fish are showing up on the wrecks this month also. A couple monster sharks were caught this week by our boat, the Big Game. Capt. Rod caught and released an 8′ bull shark on yesterday’s morning trip by soaking a couple big bloody kingfish heads as bait alongside a wreck. Big jacks are being caught next to these wrecks as well dropping live baits to the bottom. It’s been some excellent fishing this week. We’re looking forward to a great Sept-Oct fishing season. Sea you on the water.
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