It was a great week of night anchor fishing off Fort Lauderdale. We caught a nice load of yellowtail snappers every night this week. Our night trip has always been our best open party drift fishing trip for action. The reason is that on the night trip, we anchor fish for yellowtails and mutton snappers as well as the other multitudes of bottom fish. The day time trips we drift fish on the reef for kingfish and mahi mahi. The day trips we tend to catch larger fish but nowhere near as many fish as the night trips. The night trips we usually catch a lot more fish and we get the most action, but the fish we catch at night are mostly snappers which are small fish(But GOOD eating!).
I personally love to anchor fish for yellowtails. As soon as you hit the bottom, you are getting bites. We always get fish at night, even when the fishing is slow. At night, we get a lot of fish like grunts and squirrelfish, triggerfish and toros, chubs and porgies, and even on occassion the small white spotted sharks. Snapper is what we’re after though and we usually come in with a good snapper catch. Yellowtails are what we catch the most of and they are by far the best tasting snapper that I’ve ever eaten.
Mutton snapper are a highly sought after snapper at night too. We catch a few nice muttons here in Fort Lauderdale. While the yellowtails are usually between 1-3 pounds, the mutton snappers are usually between 6 and 10 pounds. Muttons are actually considered a game fish, even though they are a great eating fish. They both hang out in the same areas and they both love to eat the same baits.
At night we use a lot of squid and sardines for bait. We also use ballyhoo and silversides as bait for the snappers. For yellowtails, muttons and mangrove snappers, we like to anchor in spots around 40-80′ of water and chum the water with ground up fish parts for scent. It works well for us. We’ve been getting a lot of fish on the day trips too. Some good catches of mahi mahi and there have been some big groupers around. but this post of the fishing report/ fishing blog is about night fishing, so if you are looking for a great trip for action, try out a night fishing trip.
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