Great Fishing in Ft Lauderdale This Week

12 pound Snowy grouper

Nice snowy grouper caught deep sea fishing in Ft Lauderdale 475ft deep

The fishing is great in Ft Lauderdale this week!  There is a lot of action on the reefs with plenty of bonitos and kingfish around.  We’re catching these on both our drift fishing trips and our sportfishing charters.  We’re also getting a lot of nice fish off the bottom this week.  Some big groupers are biting out deep and the snapper bite is hot.  In shallow, approximately 40-100ft of water, mangrove snapper, muttons and black groupers are active.  Out deeper, in 300+ feet of water, the vermillion snapper are chomping and there are a few nicer groupers around too, warsaws and snowys.

Nice kingfish caught drift fishing aboard Catch My Drift

Nice kingfish caught while drift fishing on the Catch My Drift

The fishing action in Ft Lauderdale in August is always good.  Bonitos, a fish in the tuna family, make their annual migration down our coastline in massive schools this month and next.  They run in schools, tearing up any baitfish they come across.  Kingfish, blackfin tuna and wahoo are swimming right with these bonito schools, competing over the same schools of baitfish.  The aggressiveness of the bonito schools make all the other fish more aggressive too, so you can hook into some pretty large and exotic gamefish this time of year.

mutton snapper caught night fishing in Ft Lauderdale

Nice mutton snapper just caught on the night anchor trip aboard the Catch My Drift

Snappers and groupers bite great in the late summer, especially at night.  While we catch our fair share of snapper and grouper during the day, at night the snappers come out of the woodwork to feed and the bite goes off!  Yellowtails, mangroves and mutton snappers are biting excellent.  The best technique for targeting snapper at night is to anchor the boat and chum the water.  This draws the snappers and all the other reef fish close to the boat where we can drop to the bottom and catch them.  A lot of sharks, some kingfish and the occasional cobia also bite on our night trips.

Nice mutton snapper caught aboard the Mary B III

Nice mutton snapper caught aboard the Mary B III by this young angler

The fishing is good in Ft Lauderdale.  If you’re coming on the drift fishing trips, I recommend morning for kingfish and bonitos, afternoons for tuna, snapper and grouper and nights for pure snapper fishing.  On the sportfishing charters, afternoon fishing has been slightly better with the tuna and wahoos biting better at that time of day.  Call me anytime if you have any fishing questions.  Good luck to everyone fishing this week, I’ll sea ya on the water.

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