Nice double header dolphin catch on our sportfishing charter.

Our fishing charters are catching a variety this week.  All sorts of different fish are biting.  First off, sailfish are king this time of year.  They are our cool, most exciting and most sought after fish to catch in south Florida.  Sailfish are so spectacular because they are big, elusive and they put on the most awesome display of jumping during the fight.  When a sailfish is hooked, they jump, somersault, flip, twirl, twist, turn, shake and dance on the top of the water.  They put on a show that rivals the Olympic Gymnastics competition.  No other fish (except maybe tarpon which come damn close), will fight the angler like a sailfish will.  Add to that that they are big and beautiful and you have the ultimate gamefish.  December is sailfish season in Fort Lauderdale with some of our best sailfish action of the whole year.  There is an area, just a mile offshore Fort Lauderdale, the path of water from 120-180 feet deep that runs parallel to the coast which we call “Sailfish Alley”.  It’s just outside the reefs and on the inside edge of the Gulfstream and it’s where a good 85% of all our sailfish are caught.  What is so surprising is that it’s only a mile offshore.  That is mind-boggling to anglers from different parts of the world in that we can catch such large and awesome gamefish so close to shore.  We have a funny saying that Ft Lauderdale is the only place in the world where you can snap a picture of a sailfish with a condominium in the background.  We catch them literally in our backyard.  That’s what makes Ft Lauderdale the sailfish capital of the world.

Angler catching a big sailfish on our sportfishing charter.

Well, sailfish are the grand prize but we don’t catch them on every single trip.  You have to get lucky.  But this is the best time of year to go after them.  Some days we even catch multiple sails.  But on the days when the sailfish bite slows down, we still have plenty of other cool gamefish to catch.  Mahi-mahi are making a run down our coast this month.  They bite really good whenever we get a strong east wind (basically whenever the weatherman tells you not to go fishing because the waves are high).  Well, the choppy water is prime conditions for mahi-mahi and they are my favorite days to fish.  December is famous for strong winds, choppy seas and good catches of mahi-mahi.  We’re catching the mahi-mahi (dolphin fish) in 200-400ft of water either by trolling or live baiting.  Dolphin average 4-8 pounds but can get up to 50 pounds.  They are also good fighters that jump out of the water when hooked and unlike sailfish, they are excellent eating.  If you get some dolphin on your trip, take some filets over to our local restaurants … Quarterdeck, Coconuts or a dozen other restaurants that will cook your freshly caught fish.  It’s always fun to eat the fish you just caught.

Nice wahoo caught on our sportfishing charter trolling off Fort Lauderdale

Wahoo are biting!  When you catch a wahoo, you scream WAHOOOO!  It’s the law.  We catch wahoo by trolling, which is a form of fishing where the boat is moving and we drag lures behind the boat.   This is a good technique because it allows you to cover a lot of territory out there.  Wahoo love a moving bait, in fact, the faster the bait is moving, the better.  For wahoo, we troll at speeds from 5-20 mph.  It’s pretty radical to get a bite when you’re trolling at 20 mph.  Line screams off the reel so fast, the reel actually smokes.  Wahoo are debated to be the fastest fish in the ocean so no speed is too fast for wahoo.  This week, we’ve caught some big wahoos ranging from 20-45 pounds.  December is generally a good month for wahoos.  And when trolling, you can catch all kinds of other fish too such as kingfish, barracuda, bonito and tuna.  All those fish are larger, predator fish and they patrol the same waters that wahoo do.

Nice amberjack caught by this happy angler while deep dropping over a shipwreck

Wreck fishing can be good if the bite is slow.  Let’s face it, fishing is fishing.  Some days the fish are practically jumping in the boat and some days it seems like the ocean is empty.  There are so many variables with fishing, you can’t predict when they are going to be biting.  The only thing you can do is go out there and wet a line.  Well, on the slow days when trolling and live baiting just isn’t producing anything, try some bottom fishing.  We do bottom fishing anywhere from 30ft of water for yellowtails and mangrove snappers, out to depths of 500-600 feet for golden tilefish and snowy grouper.   There’s a lot of variety of fish on the bottom and some of them get really big.  Amberjacks are probably the strongest fish in the ocean pound for pound and they just start showing up around our shipwrecks this time of year.  The Spring months are when they are here in big numbers but there are some here now.  Groupers, cobia, snappers, barracuda and sharks are all top of the food chain fish that hang around shipwrecks and other underwater structures to do their hunting.  With the strong action on the topwater, pelagic fish this time of year, we don’t do too much shipwreck fishing.  But it certainly is a great way to catch some fish when the topwater bite gets slow.

Nice kingfish caught by this father and son fishing team on our sportfish charter.

There’s a lot of variety around this month and plenty of big fish to be caught.  Don’t be afraid if the ocean is rough like it can be sometimes this month.  Take some Dramamine and brave the seas.  Some of our best fishing days are when the ocean is sloppy.  Good luck to everyone fishing this month.  I’ll sea ya on the water!

Capt. Andy Roydhouse
www.FishHeadquarters.com
754-214-7863

Nice barracuda caught by this young angler on our fishing charter.

Nice sailfish just caught on our fishing charter out of south Florida.

There are some awesome fish biting on our fishing charters this week.  I don’t know if it’s the time of year, the supermoon we just had or if there’s something in the water, but there are some unusual catches coming in this week.  First off, the sailfish bite has been pretty good.  This is the season when the sailfish start biting in good numbers and we haven’t even had any cold weather yet.  Well, this is usually the time when the weather starts to cool down so good sailfishing is about to become awesome sailfishing.  Wahoo are tearing it up out there.  With the supermoon and the big tide swings, the wahoo are biting like mad.  A few really nice wahoo and a bunch of medium sized ones were caught this week.  Usual catches of kingfish, mackerel and bonitos are also hitting the docks.

Couple of fisher gals holding a big snapper caught on our fishing charter

We’ve caught some unusual fish this week.  The snapper pictured above is a humongous dog snapper.  I thought it was a cubera when I first saw it, it was so big.  These snappers are very rare for us to catch in south Florida, especially one so large.  Other strange and unusual bottom fish are biting too.  We’ve caught some monster golden tilefish deep dropping in over 600ft of water.  Barrelfish and oilfish are also biting.  These are not usual catches for our fishing charters.  Other big bottom dwellers such as warsaw grouper and some big amberjacks have been caught on our fishing charters this week.  It’s been a great month for bottom fishing.

Monster amberjack caught on our fishing charter while bottom fishing

Shark fishing is also starting to light up out there.  This week, we’ve caught several hammerhead sharks, a mako shark (very rare), a couple of sand bar sharks and a huge bull shark.  I think this year will have some awesome shark fishing results.  We’re still not fully into shark fishing season but the unusual fishing conditions had us floating out some big shark baits since the sharks were really riled up with the big moon and super tides.  Glad we did because we caught some monster sharks over the past few days.

Big hammerhead shark caught on our shark fishing charter

The effects of the supermoon are still being seen with extraordinary tides, strange fish and unusual catches.  As we normalize, look for great catches of mahi-mahi, sailfish, wahoo and cobia to be hitting the docks in the weeks to come.  Good luck to everyone fishing out there this week.  I’ll sea ya on the water.

Capt. Paul Roydhouse
www.FishHeadquarters.com
754-214-7863

Nice wahoo just caught trolling the reef. Lots of wahoo being caught this week.

Dolphin are biting good on our sportfishing charters this week out of Ft Lauderdale.

The weather has been very windy this week.  It’s kept a lot of the small boats home and even some of the big boats.  We’ve been fishing every day though and let me tell you, the fishing (and the catching) has been great!  Dolphin, tuna, sailfish and more are biting.  The reason?  the strong easterly wind.  A hard east wind gets the fish chewing.  It blows the seaweed and debris in closer to the shore and with it, the dolphin.  If you can handle the waves, these are the conditions we wait for all year for the really good fishing.  It also helps that many boats haven’t been fishing the past few days, making less competition for the fish.

Nice sailfish just caught fishing the Ft Lauderdale reef.

Dolphin aren’t the only fish that’s on the menu.  Sailfish, our most sought after gamefish, are biting with a voracious appetite this week.  October is one of the best months of the year for sailfish and the strong east winds really get them hungry.  We’ve been catching quite a few sailfish lately by trolling, but our best technique for catching sailfish is by kite fishing.  Kite fishing is a technique that uses kites to suspend the baits on the top of the water where the baits have to struggle to keep their heads underwater so they can breath.  These struggles put out vibrations that predator fish pick up on and draw them in.  The one constant that you need to go kite fishing is sufficient wind.  A good strong and steady wind is necessary to  keep the kites and baits up.  Couple the strong easterly wind (best sailfish conditions) with an ability to go kite fishing and get ready for some great sailfishing!

Nice dolphin just caught trolling on our fishing charter

While sailfish and dolphin are the main catches on our deep sea fishing charters, there’s a bevy of other fish biting as well.  Kingfish, barracuda, wahoo, blackfin and skipjack tuna are also biting on the reef.  These fish are biting best trolling lures around on the reef.  You never know what you might catch when you’re trolling.  Wrecks are holding fish as well, but with the wind and waves as they are, trolling/kite fishing techniques are more productive. This windy weather may seem like not a good time to fish, but quite the opposite, we wait all year for these conditions. Some of our best catches of our lives happen on the windiest, roughest days.  Good luck to everyone fishing over the next week.  I’ll sea ya on the water.

Capt. Andy Roydhouse
www.FishHeadquarters.com
754-214-7863

Nice cobia caught by this lucky fisher gal on our drift fishing trip

Nice mutton snappers and kingfish caught drift fishing aboard the Catch My Drift

The snapper and kingfish action has really lit up this week.  Our drift fishing boat is catching them very good on the reef in 90-110 ft of water.  The kingfish are biting best on the early morning run.  We’re catching them on whole ballyhoo and sardines drifting them about mid-depth.  Snappers on the other hand are biting best on the afternoon and night anchor trips.  They usually bite better later in the day and into the night.  We’re catching our snappers either with chunks of squid or other chunk bait (best for yellowtails and mangrove snappers).  Plug baits (a whole sardine or ballyhoo with it’s head cut off) work best for mutton snappers and groupers.

Nice mutton snappers caught on our drift fishing trip.

The king tides this month during the few days around the full moon can make for some crazy snapper fishing.  This week, we’ve had some outstanding nights for mangroves.  Still, the mangroves on some nights can be snapping and on other nights non-existant.  On the nights when the mangrove bite is slow, we’ve been falling back to our yellowtail spots and doing well catching yellowtail snappers.  On most nights we come home with a few good sized mutton snappers are well.  Snappers are the main target on the night trips but we also get a few groupers and sometimes even a really big cobia.  We get some sharks on our night trips this time of year as well.  At night, you can catch just about anything, you never know what you’re going to get.

Lots of mangrove snappers are biting on our night anchor trips.

The mullet run is in full swing and there’s a mixed bag of all sorts of species trolling the Ft Lauderdale reefs.  Kingfish, tunas, sailfish and wahoo are all taking advantage of the easy pickings on mullet.  Every year, the mullet make their way down our coastline, filling our inlets and Intracoastal waterway with their schools.  They bring a lot of life with them during their migration as larger, predator fish follow close behind to pick off any mullet that lags behind the rest of the school.  Right now, sailfish are biting really, really good on our sportfishing charters.  Kingfish, blackfin tuna, wahoo and barracuda are also biting excellent.  Our sportfishing charters are our best trip for catching the most and the biggest fish.  Sailfish season starts now and lasts through February.  Sailfish LOVE the windy, cooler weather as it moves through.  The windier, cooler the day, the better the sailfish will bite.

Nice sailfish just caught in Ft Lauderdale.

Mahi-mahi are scattered and spotty.  They don’t bite every day.  They are around this  time of year and this past week, with the hard east wind, it has blown the mahi in closer in to just outside the reef.  We’re catching them in 120-350 ft of water.  The easterly wind is definitely the reason.  Dolphin move with the wind and the hard east wind blows both the sargassum weed in closer to shore, and with it brings also the mahi-mahi.   Just remember stong east wind equals both choppy seas and mahi-mahi.

Nice dolphin caught on our sportfishing charter in Ft Lauderdale.

Remember with these big tides this time of year, it is also a good time for wahoo.  Wahoo love the full moons because they love the big tide changes.  With the Ft Lauderdale king tides, also comes the best wahoo fishing of the year.  You want to fish the tide change, I like the height of high tide until the trough of low tide. We catch some really big wahoo this time of year, get ready for some big wahoo pics coming next week.

Big wahoo caught on our Ft Lauderdale sportfishing charter

Good luck to everyone fishing this week.  There is a lot of variety of fish this time of year.  If you can brave the seas (and they are choppy this time of year), you have potential to catch some pretty awesome fish.  I’ll sea ya on the water!

Capt. Andy Roydhouse
www.FishHeadquarters.com
754-214-7863

Nice kingfish caught drift fishing on the Ft Lauderdale reef.

The fishing in Fort Lauderdale has been excellent this week.  Lots of kingfish and bonitos are still biting on the reefs.  Action on the wrecks has been consistent with a good amount of snappers and sometimes a grouper.  Offshore action has been spotty.  There are some dolphin out but you have to find them which require a lot of trolling miles.  There’s been much better and more consistent action trolling the reefs and edge of the Gulfstream.  Sailfish starting biting early last week and wow!!!  what a week of sailfishing.  This is just the beginning of sailfish season and it looks like this year will be a tremendous year for them.  We catch different varieties of fish on our different trips, so this is a breakdown of what we are catching on the various deep sea fishing trips that we run:

Nice mutton snapper caught by this angler on our deep sea fishing trip

Drift Fishing Trips  8:30am & 1:30pm
Our drift fishing trips are doing well catching kingfish, bonitos and snappers.  Bonitos seem to be hanging in longer this year than in years past.  They are usually long gone by now, but there are still big numbers of bonitos on the reefs.  Kingfish are mixed in with them. We’re catching the kingfish by either flat line fishing a ballyhoo/sardine or by jigging a whip jig off the bow of the boat.  These techniques are also the best way to catch bonito and blackfin tuna.  Snappers fishing is also going good.  We’re getting some really big mutton snappers here and there on the afternoon trips.  Decent numbers of yellowtail snappers are biting as well as the full array of grunts, porgies, triggers, jacks and other good eating bottom fish.

Nice catch of bonitos and kingfish on our deep sea fishing charter.

Night Anchor Trips 7:30pm
Night anchor trips are catching the highest numbers of fish out of the 3 trips aboard our party fishing boat.  Our night anchor trip concentrates on fishing for snappers on the bottom.  Lots of yellowtails are biting at night.  Mangrove snappers are biting pretty good too.  Usually on the full moon of September, the mangroves will spawn and bite extra good.  Tomorrow night is the full moon, so we’ll see.  A select few muttons are also biting and they’ve been big!  The muttons we’re catching this week have averaged 6-12 pounds, which is a bit larger than our average muttons usually are.  Sharks are also biting on some nights on our anchor trip.  We catch a lot of Atlantic sharpnose sharks, Cuban night sharks, blacktips and nurse.  These sharks aren’t the monster gamesharks that we catch on our sportfishing charters, but rather 3-4 ft in length and perfect for a good fight on 30 pound test.  Our night anchor trips are catching the most fish by numbers of any of our daily $40 trips.

Nice mutton snapper caught night anchor fishing aboard the Catch My Drift.

Sportfishing Shared and Private Charters
Our sportfishing charters are our best all around trip and they are coming in with the most impressive catches lately.  Trolling the reefs is working excellent for kingfish, blackfin tuna, bonito, barracuda and sometimes even a wahoo.  The action on the troll has made it difficult for us to switch over and do anything different.  First rule of fishing is never to leave fish to find fish.  But once we’ve caught our limit of kingfish, we often switch over just for the heck of it to try some live baiting.  This past week, sailfishing has been off-the-scale!  September is the beginning of sailfish season here in Ft Lauderdale.  This is the time of year all the big game fishermen come down to try their luck at catching the most sought after gamefish in the ocean… Sailfish.  This sailfish season started off this past week with a bang.  We had 3 days when the sailfish were jumping in the boat.  One day we caught 6, one day 8 and 4 the next.  It doesn’t get much better than that.  It tailed off a bit over the past couple days but that’s how sailfishing is… it runs in spurts.  We get a huge influx of sailfish for a couple days and they bite like crazy, and then they disappear for a few days.  We’re only a few days into sailfish season but this sailfish season looks like it is going to be epic!

Nice sailfish caught by this fisher gal on our sportfishing charter in Ft Lauderdale.

All Day Shared Sportfishing Charters
Our All Day trip is just like our regular shared sportfishing charters except that we stay out and fish for a full 8 hour day.  We catch the same stuff, just more!  One great thing about the all day trip is that with so much fishing time available to us, we can try a few different things on the trip to catch more of a variety.  It also gives us the available time to try our luck offshore if we hear there are any mahi-mahi dolphin biting.  We also have been doing some deep dropping on our 8 hour trips and catching some cool deepwater fish such as grey tilefish, golden tilefish, barrelfish, scorpion groupers and more.  With 8 hours, we have time to catch a bunch of fish trolling the reef, switch up and try for a sailfish by live baiting with the kites and hit the wrecks for some deep bottom fish.  More fishing = better.

Nice catch of groupers, jacks and snappers on an All Day fishing trip.

Tarpon Fishing Trips
Our inshore trips have picked up a few nice tarpon this week.  We’re fishing the protected waters around the bridges and docks that line the Intracoastal Waterway.  Right now, tarpon and jack crevale are biting pretty good, along with an oddball barracuda or snook.  Tarpon can be caught day or night, but the bite is usually best for them on our night runs.  Sharks are sometimes caught on this trip at night too.  With the mullet run beginning over the next few weeks, we will have a serious influx of tarpon into our waters.  Tarpon, jack crevale, snook, barracuda, sharks and permit follow the mullet run down the coast.  This is the best time of year to go out with some light tackle and fish for these shallow water gamefish.

General Fishing
The fishing is good in September.  Temperatures will finally start to cool down towards the end of the month, so this is a transition month between the Summer and Fall fishing seasons.  With the mullet run coming down the coastline and sailfish season beginning, we’re catching some of our biggest fish of the year this month.  No matter which trip you choose, the potential is there for great catches.  Good luck to everyone fishing with us this week.  I’ll sea ya on the water,

Capt. Andy Roydhouse
www.FishHeadquarters.com
754-214-7863

Nice catch of dolphin and wahoo on the troll, off Ft Lauderdale beach.