Drift Fishing Report

The drift fishing on the reef lately has been a mix of kingfish and snappers.  Kingfish, averaging 6-10 pounds, are biting well on the morning and afternoon trips.  They’ve been biting on sardines the best, at least the bigger ones have been.  The bite has been in 80-120′ of water and most of our fish have been caught just south of the inlet on the outside edge of the reef.  Snappers too are being caught on our drift fishing trips.  Those fishermen fishing bottom rigs are catching yellowtail snappers fairly well and the occassional bigger mutton snapper.

A fish we don’t get everyday out there, cobia, are starting to bite out there too.  Cobia are traditionally a bottom dweller, that actually make their living by following around sting rays.  A school of cobia will follow behind a big sting ray and watch for it to uncover a crab or fish or shrimp that was hiding in the sand.  As soon as they see it, they gobble it up.  You can catch a cobia on the surface also.  Cobias might like to follow sting rays to get food, but The Stingray Buffet is hardly the only fast food restaurant in the ocean.  Cobia will occassionally rise to the surface to grab a quick snack. 

A lot of the cobia we catch on the surface are alone and when we catch them around stingrays or on the bottom, they are usually in schools.  On one of our drift fishing trips the other day, we were fishing the reef when a customer yells out, “Shark on the surface”.  Capt. Vic took a quick glance and shouted back, “Cobia! Cobia!”.  It was a mad casting frenzy, but before anyone could throw their line towards the fish, the cobia swam right over to the sardine closest to him and ate.  It was a nice cobia, about a 35 pounder, and we caught him in only about 4 or 5 minutes.  Nice fish caught aboard the Catch My Drift.

We’ve mainly been catching kingfish, snapper, grouper, cobia, and a few tunas on the drift boat trips.  It’s been great on some days and slower on others, but we always bring back fish.  Night fishing has been great snapper fishing.  I’m going to write a night fishing report tommorrow.

Sportfishing Report

The sailfish bite is still on, and I think this is the second cold front of the year.  Sailfish love the cold weather and whenever we get a cold spell, the sailfish always snap.  The next few days should be some awesome sailfish fishing in South Florida.  One of our boats, the Keeping it Reel, has caught a sailfish on every single charter this week.  Sailfish are biting while kite fishing with live baits and trolling artificial lures.  When the sailfish are biting trolling baits, I usually just assume troll for them, because you can cover a lot more ground out there.  Also, trolling usually yields good catches of king mackeral and sometimes wahoo and mahi-mahi.

There are 2 types of fish that bite exceptionally well in November, and both of these fish are fairly rare the rest of the year: wahoo and cobia.  I call wahoo and cobia the Thanksgiving fish.  Wahoo are an offshore fish that are usually caught on our offshore dolphin fishing trips, 700-900′ of water.  In November, we usually catch them just 1-2 miles offshore, in only 180′-300′ of water.  This is a great season to go high speed trolling for wahoo.  Wahoo love to bite at really fast speeds.  My favorite speed to troll for wahoo is 14 knots(about 18 miles per hour).  That’s very fast for any kind of fishing, but it is the best method of targeting wahoo.  Wahoo are the fastest fish in the ocean.

Cobia fishing is great this time of year too.  We catch cobia around the shipwrecks usually.  No catches of cobia on our sportfishing charters this week, but the head boats are catching them.  They will show up on the shipwrecks soon enough for us, and then we’ll be catching them good.  Around the wrecks, there have been some very nice fish.  A lot of huge amberjacks are starting to show up on the 200′+ shipwrecks.  Really big groupers are being caught on the deeper shipwrecks.  We caught this 35 lb. back grouper on a 250′ shipwreck off Fort Lauderdale.  Judging by the way it was fighting, I was absolutely certain that it was a huge amberjack.  Capt. Adam guessed it to be a grouper.  I knew I was wrong when I saw the fish pop up on the surface.  Very nice catch. 

The deep wrecks are holding amberjacks and groupers, but the shallow wrecks are holding big barracuda.  If your a meat fisherman, than you probably don’t like to catch these.  If your a light tackle enthusiast, you won’t find a fish that’s more fun to catch.  Barracudas are hanging around the shallow wrecks right now and they are huge.  The summer barracuda are usually like 20-25 inches long, but the big fall and winter barracuda are the 40+ inches.  I’m glad barracudas don’t get any bigger than they do, there wouldn’t be any fish left in the ocean. 

I would have to say, great fishing on both the drift fishing and the sportfishing boats.  Sharks will be here soon, and sailfish should be hanging around for a while.  It’s going to be a good season on fishing.  Sea ya out there…

Our Fort Lauderdale head boat, the Catch My Drift, has been doing very well on their morning and afternoon fishing trips these past few days.  A lot of good kingfish action on the reef has been keeping most of the anglers busy.  We’ve been getting most of our bites just out in front of the inlet, in about 100-150′ of water.  This is the time of year that we catch some of our biggest kingfish in South Florida.  Most kingfish average 8-12 lbs. but there are some 20-40 pound kingfish out there on the reefs right now.  Those drifting with ballyhoo and sardines are catching the kingfish, while those fishing the bottom are getting pretty good bites on some bigger snapper.  A long time customer of Fishing Headquarters, Jamaican Pete as we call him, caught this 7 pound mangrove snapper while drift fishing aboard Catch My Drift on a morning trip.  This is a huge sized mangrove and probably the biggest mangrove we’ll catch all year. 

There have been some mahi-mahi and tunas showing up just on the outside edge of the reef for us this week also.  Mahi-mahi are usually an offshore fish, but they sometimes come in close this time of year;  whenever the Gulf Stream swings in close to shore.  The mahi-mahi we’re catching now, range in size from 6-20 pounds.  If your fishing on the da trips, keep a whole squid nearby, in case a couple mahi-mahi swim up to the boat.  The deep sea fishing on most of our morning and afternoon trips has been very productive with a lot of action.

Our night trips aboard  the Mary B 3 have been catching some decent fish too.  Our regulars are catching the yellowtail snapper good on the lighter tackle, and those fishing along the side of the boat at night are getting the larger mangrove and mutton snappers.  A few cobia, a rare fish to catch out there most of the time, are being caught on the night trips this week.  Last nights trip, we hooked into a 40 pound cobia and fought him for a half an hour.  Of coarse, the cobia bit the lightest rod we had out there and we ended up breaking the line when he got tangled into another persons line.  If we had him on almost any other rod we were fishing with that night, we would have caught him.  BUMMER!!  Anyway, good variety and good action on our night trips as well.  Come on out fishing, the weathers been great and the fish are biting.  Sea ya out on the deep sea.

-Capt. Andy

Mahi-Mahi have been what’s biting off Fort Lauderdale these past few weeks.  Almost every day we’ve been hitting a school or two out there on our fishing charters.  Most of the mahi-mahi have been 5-8 pounds, just a bit bigger than the normal summer schoolie dolphins.  Very few big ones have been caught.  All the mahi-mahi have been about the same size and traveling in small schools of 6-10 fish.  It’s fun to hit a school of mahi-mahi out there.  You’re trolling along, and out of nowhere 6 fish are behind the boat jumping with a couple more fish swimming right up to the boat.  It can be chaotic at times when there are more fish around the boat than we have anglers to catch them, but I love that kind of chaos. 

Both the sportfishing boats and the drift fishing boats have been getting into the mahi-mahi out there.  On our Wednesday all day dolphin trip this week, we not only caught a nice mess of dolphin, but we also caught a 35 pound wahoo.  That was a nice surprise.  With all the storms activity to the south of us, the Gulf Stream is bringing a lot of debris right into our backyard.  We’ve been finding logs, trees and boards floating out there.  Around the floating debris is almost always a few mahi-mahi or a hungry wahoo.  Beautiful weedlines and color changes have been forming up offshore as well. It’s been really easy to find stuff to fish along side out there. 

On the reef have been some schools of kingfish, bonitos and blackfin tuna.  The tuna have been small guys, around 5 or 6 pounders.  The kingfish average 8-10 pounds with a bigger one here and there.  The kings have started biting really good for us out there.  The morning drift trip caught their limit of kingfish yesterday and the charter sport fishing boats have been catching their limits almost every day.  The fishing is very good in Ft Lauderdale right now, and we have sailfish season to look forward to in October, November and December.  It’s a great time to get out there and do some deep sea fishing.

We’ve had some good fishing this September so far out of Fort Lauderdale.  The drift fishing boats have been doing really good on the reefs, fishing for kingfish.  The kingfish have been jumping in the boat and eating everything we’ve been throwing at them.  It’s good to see the fish biting so good.  Despite what the weatherman is reporting, the weather is actually very good in Fort Lauderdale right now.  There are some rain storms around because of Hurricane Hannah and Hurricane Ike being so close to us, but we’re still out there fishing every day.  The waves are only 1-2 foot seas.  I think this morning’s weather report said there were 12 foot seas out there.  Man, the weather channel really tries to scare everyone for some reason. 

This falling barometer is probably why the kingfish are biting so well.  We always do really good on kingfish whenever the day is a little bit overcast.  The blackfin tunas were biting in full force last week.  A few lucky anglers that came fishing with us, went home with some delicious fresh tuna steaks.  Mmmmm, Mmmmm….  There were some big schools of 25-35 lb. blackfin tuna out there all week.  They’ve kind of died down a bit recently, but there are still some around.  Fortunately, the snapper have taken over!

Snapper fishing this week has been phenomenal.  Lots of yellowtails, averaging around 2-3 lbs each.  The mutton snappers are snapping on the reef also.  We had a couple trips this week during the day, where we caught over 25 mutton snappers(and we were kingfishing!).  If you have a good feel for bottom fishing, throw a line down on the bottom and wait for that mutton bite.  Mutton snapper take a little bit of skill to catch, because they are so smart.  For muttons, you gotta use long leaders or you just won’t get the bite.  Fresh bait helps too, as does light leader(40lb. is good), or if you can afford it, fluorocarbon is the best. 

I’ve been really pleased with how good the fishing is this week here in Fort Lauderdale.  The drift boat has been coming in with really good catches all August and so far September has been just as good.  We still go fishing every day, even though there are these tropical storms about.  It’s like my dad always told me, “Fish still bite in the rain… they’re already wet.”  Sea ya all out there on the deep sea, the fish are biting.

Sorry I’ve been so infrequent with these reports.  I’m trying to get back on the bandwagon of writting these and uploading all the cool fishing photos.  It’s just time consuming, so it’s hard to do every day.  Anyway, the drift fishing in Fort Lauderdale has been outstanding this month.  All month we’ve been getting kingfish, bonito, yellowtail snappers, schoolie mahi-mahi, and even blackfin tuna.  The drift fishing has been very productive for us on the reefs lately. 

Ballyhoo, sardines and calamari are what’s on the menu for the fish these days.  I love that our boat uses dead sardines.  Most head boats do not use these wonderful little baits because they do cost a pretty penny.  They are definetly the most oily and smelly bait there is and the fish absolutely love them.  Kingfish WILL NOT turn down a beautiful dead sardine dangled in front of his mouth.  The kingfish action has on the drift fishing trips has been literally awesome.  We’ve been finding the schools of kingfish on all the daytime drift trips lately.

Night fishing has been slow for kingfish, which is why it’s so much better to go anchor fishing at night.  Much more variety is caught anchor fishing at night than drift fishing at night.  Snappers especially have been biting well, yellowtail, mutton and even mangroves.  The mangrove bite has been unbelievable this summer.  We’ve been anchoring out a little bit deeper than we used to on the night anchor fishing trip and I think we may have just stumbled onto something.  It seems the mangrove snapper, although traditionally a very shallow water snapper, actually move out into the deeper waters at night.  This is good news for us, because we’ve got some awesome spots in that depth and our customers have been bringing in some really large mangrove snappers. 

A few groupers have been hitting the docks these past few days.  I’ve seen some red groupers, black groupers and even some scamp groupers being caught lately on both the daytime and the nighttime trips.  The pool winning fish today was a big red grouper that weighed about 12 pounds.  We caught 2 others on the same trip that were so close in weight, we had to weight them down to the ounce.  That is a really good sign to see those bigger grouper showing up around Fort Lauderdale and Miami. 

Lastly, I’ll tell you all about the blackfin tuna bite.  All week, we’ve been hearing blackfin tunas have been biting down south of us in Miami.  The schools of the fish are travelling north and I think they just started showing up today.  We may have a real good blackfin tuna bite this week and next.  Get ready for some good tuna action on our day drift fishing party boat trips out of Fort Lauderdale.  Sea you out there for some good Deep Sea Fishing.

The fishing is going off in Fort Lauderdale this month.  There has been non stop action on all the different trips we offer.  Our sportfishing trips have been going awesome, drift fishing trips have been full of action, the Wednesday all day dolphin trip has been red hot and the Friday night swordfishing trip has been getting some good ones.  All in all, the fishing in Fort Lauderdale is just plain spectacular. 

I always tell people, in the summer, the weather is hot… and so is the fishing.  The reefs are holding tons and tons and tons of kingfish, bonitos, tunas and other species.  Most of our 4 hour drift fishing trips have been coming in with a load of king mackerals, a box load of bonitos and a few snappers.  If you’ve been waiting for a good time to go out there when the fish will be biting, then wait no more.  The fish are here. 

The sportfishing trips have been coming in with some big game fish as well.  Some sharks, sailfish and big golden amberjacks are still being caught out there.  The sportfishing boats are also bringing in almost as many kingfish and bonitos as the drift fishing boats have been catching.  On this sportfishing trip, we caught our usual assortment of bonitos and kings, as well as this huge cobia you see hanging on the rack.  Talk about a good eating fish, cobia are one of my favorites. 

The great fishing action has pretty much just arrived, so plan on seeing catches like these over the next 4-6 weeks.  Its going to be a helluva summer fishing Fort Lauderdale. 

Summer is here!  Kids are out of school, the sun is shining, the fish are biting, now is a great time for fishing in Fort Lauderdale.  First off, this is the all around best time of year for mahi mahi.  I mean, they are all over the place out there.  Most of them are the schoolies, not more than 5 or 6 pounds, but there are a lot of them.  Hit one school offshore, find a weedline to troll along, or spot just one piece of debris floating and you’re in there, Dolphin!  For this time of year, I do reccomend a longer trip, like a 6 hour or all day, because it can take some time to find them out there.  Fortunately for us, birds are much better fishermen than ourselves, and we can spot them a lot easier.  If you’re looking for some decent dolphin action and a possible freezer filling mission, this is about the best time of year for an all day dolphin charter.

Kingfish action has been very decent as well.  Kings, bonitos, mahi mahi, and even some blackfin tunas have been pretty thick along the deeper reefs and wrecks off south Florida.  Best action has been from trolling planers and outrigger baits(rigged strips and ballyhoos).  Troll anywhere from 80′-175′ of water and you’ll get plenty of action.  Try brighter colored lures and skirts on darker overcast days and darker skirts and lures on bright, shiny days.  Seawitches, plain skirts, small mildcraft lures, and drone spoons are the ticket this time of year. 

The four hour drift fishing trips have been pulling in their fair share of bonitos, kings and snappers too.  Some very nice muttons are going to be biting on the next couple of full moons.  This is the mutton spawn off Fort Lauderdale and our night anchor trip usually wails on them for a few nights.  The bigger muttons are already starting to show up on the reef, so its just a matter of time until the spawning begins… and it will be soon. 

Kings and bonitos have started biting on the day drift fishing trips too.  Today we caught a couple of big fat kings and a few bonitos.  The major bonito/kingfish fest doesn’t get in full swing for a couple weeks, but there are plenty of them on the reef now to keep you busy.  By the end of August, we’re going to be so tired of catching kings and bonitos, we’re going to be wishing for some slower fishing.  Just kidding, NEVER!  Well, good luck to all of you that are fishing with us this week, and we have plenty of openings on both the sportfishing boats and drift fishing trips to get you out fishing whenever you want to go.  Call me, Capt. Andy for reservations.  Sea ya’ll on the ocean…

The bite is on off the coast of Fort Lauderdale this month.  May is about over and the June fish are here.  Lots of schools of small dolphin are going to be showing up offshore and the tuna/wahoo bite is going to be on this summer.  Right now though, there is some great action to be had off the reefs and wrecks of Ft. Lauderdale.  Sailfish started snapping this week again, and what a great year on sailfish we’ve had already.  This is perhaps the best sailfishing this late in the season I have ever seen off the South Florida coast.  We aren’t getting the winter numbers of sailfish out there, but we’re still catching plenty.  On 4 charters this week,we’ve caught double header sailfish by either trolling artificial lures or kite fishing.  They are moving through and very aggressive. 

Sailfish aren’t the only fishing biting out there on our deep sea fishing charters.  Golden amberjacks are heavy on all the wrecks and you’ll be lucky if you can even get your bait to the bottom.  These fish are big(40-60 pounds) and they are very, very aggressive.  There are some larger groupers around the wrecks this time of year and also cobia, but its not often a big amberjack does not grab your bait first.  The amberjacks are showing up on just about all the artificial reefs we have off Fort Lauderdale, but there are some really big ones on the wrecks deeper than 250 feet. 

I almost had a really cool fish story to tell you all about on a daytime swordfishing charter we ran the other day.  Rod and Adam went out and did a few daytime drops for swordfish the other dayy.  The bait was down maybe 15 minutes and got slammed by a huge fish.  After a 45 mintute fight, the fish got close enough, they guessed the weight of the fish at about 200 pounds.    As soon as Rod grabbed the leader, the fish took off on a sick run which resulted in him pulling the hook.  It was a heartbreaker for everyone aboard.  They tried some more drops and a little fishing into the night, but no luck.  It was almost an awesome trip. 

There have been some smoker kingfish around on the reefs also.  The drift fishing boats are coming in with king mackerals, blackfin tuna, and a lot of snappers.  The drift fishing has been improving immensly from what it was like a month ago.  Its been great action on all 3 trips, especially the night trip.  Lots of yellowtails and mangrove snappers being caught on the night anchor trips.  Most of them 1-3 pounds, but a few of the mangroves we’ve been catching lately are upwards of 5-6 pounds.  Now thats a big mangrove snapper.  A few 20+ pound kingfish have been brought in on the day fishing trips.  I’m looking forward to a great summer.   

Good fishing in Fort Lauderdale this week.  Lots of action on dolphin, tuna and some smaller wahoos.  In fact, our Wednesday All Day Dolphin trip aboard the Mary B III this week did excellent.  They caught all these fish trolling around offshore, in anywhere from 350′-1000′ of water.  The dolphin were eating lures that Josh Jr. rigged up, rigged with bonito strips and whole ballyhoos.  Everyone that came on the trip got a nice catch and went home with some delicious mahi-mahi filets.  But the dolphin haven’t been the only fish biting out there.

Shark fishing is still in full swing on our sportfishing charters.  The Big Game and the Out of the Blue have been coming in with some awesome shark catches.  These are a couple photos of some awesome shark catches.  This photo above shows a truly gigantic hammerhead shark that Capt. Chuck caught on his half day sportfishing charter out of Ft. Lauderdale.   The fish was almost 11 feet long and fought these guys for over hours.  What an amazing catch, congratulations guys.  The photo below was another awesome shark fishing trip out of Fort Lauderdale.  Capt. Josh went out and caught 3 sharks, a sailfish and 3 dolphin fish.  WOw!  Now that’s some great fishing.  2 of the big sharks and the sailfish were released, but they brought this one back to the dock.  This is the time of year that we come in with catches like this.  Great fishing lately and I think the fishing will just keep getting better and better throughout the summer months.  Let’s get out there and do some fishing!   

The Fort Lauderdale drift fishing has been very very good lately.  Lots of action on the 4 hour drift trips, as well as lots and lots of snappers on the night anchor fishing trips.  The mahi mahi have been showing up on the reefs in good numbers abnd have been eating everything we throw out there to them.  Unfortunately they don’t show up for us on every single trip, although when they aren’t biting, the kingfish usually are.

The night anchor fishing has been particularly good lately.  Captain Billy brought in this huge catch of vermillion snappers on one of our night fishing trips off Fort Lauderdale.  They were out in about 120′ of water and the vermillions bit with ferocity.  They must have been starving because we caught so many fish, it took us till daylight to clean them all. 

The vermillion snappers haven’t been the only fish hitting at night.  Big mutton snappers, and I mean big ones, are being caught on the night anchor fishing trips.  In these photos, Mr. Lee and Oliver, 2 of our regualr fishermen, are holding up a couple of their big mutton snappers caught reef anchor fishing off Fort Lauderdale.  There have been some bigger muttons and even a few groupers showing up on the night trips lately. 

The day fishing trips have been exciting lately.  The weather has been beautiful and as usual this time of year, the fish have been biting.  When the kings are biting, we’re on the reefs drifting out dead ballyhoo and sardines.  The action is good.  Sometimes we get jumped by a school of mahi mahi and then we really come in with a good catch.  Lots of action on the morning and the afternoon trips lately. 

Here we are drifting on the reef offshore of Ft Lauderdale and catching kingfish, snappers and this elusive sponge fish.  The sponge I think, put up the best fight of the trip out there.  This lady fought the sponge like a world class angler, and what a fight it was.  If it was a fish, it would have been an awesome catch.  This is her fighting Sponge Bob as we named him.

And lastly, lots of action on the small reef fish like trigger fish and stuff like that.  We released this beautiful queen trigger fish right after catching it.  This was this boy’s first saltwater fish.  A very nice first catch for him, if I do say so myself.  We also caught a big sailfish on the same trip.  This is a photo of the sailfish along side the boat, just prior to release. Nice trip guys.