Fort Lauderdale Sailfish Bite Heats Up

Jumping Sailfish

Sailfish on splashdown in Fort Lauderdale

Sailfishing in Fort Lauderdale is heating up this week with the 20+ mph east winds we’re getting this week.  The Out of the Blue is crushing the sailfish on their sportfishing charters, kite fishing in 100-150′ of water.  Yesterday’s morning charter landed 2 sailfish and the afternoon trip caught 4 and missed 2 others!  Afternoons are catching more sailfish on average than the morning trips are.  Rough seas  make it a little tougher to fish, but it is on the roughest days when the fishing is the best.  Dolphin are also scattered all over the reef and are giving us a lot action.  The 15+ days we’ve had of continuous east winds are pushing them in on the reef and we are loving it!  Just about every trip we’ve fished this week has caught dolphin.  The Mary B III all day dolphin trip is catching the most numbers of them.  With 8 hours to fish, they can fish spend a serious amount of time fishing for dolphin.

Big Sailfish

Capt Rod and Al with a big sailfish caught sportfishing in Fort Lauderdale

Tuna are also scattered on the reefs.  We’re getting into a variety of them.  Bonitos, blackfin tuna, skipjacks and even a couple small yellowfin were caught this week.  They are biting good on the troll.  Natural feathers and swimming ballyhoo baits are working well for catching the tunas.  Most of these tunas are 5-10 pound, but we do catch a 20-30 pounder every now and then.  A few cobia are also hitting out there.  We are catching them around the wrecks and sometimes around a turtle or big ray that swims by.  Always keep a pitch bait ready to throw.  You never know when a cobia may be about.

cobia

Big cobia caught drift fishing aboard the Catch My Drift

Night anchor fishing for snappers is also catching a lot of big mangroves and muttons and lot of small yellowtail snappers.  The best bite is going on in shallow water, 20-30 feet deep is best depth for mangroves.  Many of the ‘grovers’ we are getting are 4-5 pounds, nice size snapper!  Muttons are also nice size this time of year and numerous.  You can’t go wrong fishing a ballyhoo plug on the bottom in Fort Lauderdale.  The mates will rig you up!  Good luck to everyone fishing this week, the fishing is GOOD!

Big mutton snapper

Mr Lee and Sami with a big mutton snapper caught on the night anchor fishing trip

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