Jul 15
1

Great Summertime Action on Our Ft Lauderdale Fishing Charters

By | Drift Fishing Reports, Offshore Reports, Sportfishing Charter Report | No Comments
Ashley and Justin kneeling on deck with a big pile of bonitos laying on the deck of the boat.

Great catch of bonitos and kingfish on our drift fishing trip aboard the Catch My Drift.

The action is astounding on our fishing trips this week.  The bonito run in full force as they charge through our waters in tremendous numbers.  Bonitos are in the same family of fish as tuna and they have all their same traits of aggressiveness, super strength and frenzied feeding.    The sheer number of bonitos that we catch this month and next is staggering.  Kingfish are snapping also.  They are mixed in with the bonitos.  Kings swim in the same waters and feed on the same diet that bonitos do.  Blackfin tunas are also biting good these days and are the third most prevalent fish on the reefs.  All 3 legs of that tripod are making up the majority of our catches this month and are providing great action on our Ft Lauderdale fishing charters.

Lady holding a big kingfish she just caught.

Nice kingfish caught by this fisher gal on our sportfishing trip.

The action is on fire on the reefs and those aren’t the only fish biting.  A few big wahoo have hit the docks too.  Wahoo are a summertime fish and act just like a bonito when on the line.  You never know if you’ve hooked a big wahoo or a big bomber bonito until you get the fish up close to the boat.  Every now and then, you see those stripes and the adrenaline pumps and you’ve got a wahoo behind the boat!  Wahoo are famous for shaking the hooks right behind the transom of the boat.  That’s what makes them so awesome to catch, the rarity and the difficulty to successfully land them.

Guy holding a big wahoo at the dock next to the Mary B III.

Nice wahoo caught fishing aboard the Mary B III on a sportfishing charter.

Sailfish are another less abundant fish on the reefs this time of year but still a possible catch.  Sails are one of the most sought after fish in the ocean and one of the biggest fish we catch fishing in Fort Lauderdale.  They are called the ballerina of the sea because of the spectacular jumping displays they put on.  Sailfish always grab the surface lures.  They come up and bat the bait using their bill.  It often takes them 10-12 attempts at coming up and whacking at the bait before they get it down their mouths.  As soon as you come tight on them, they come up jumping.  It’s one of the most exciting moments in sportfishing when you get your first sailfish on the line, jumping behind the boat. We don’t catch sailfish every day, but when we do it sure is exciting.

2 guys holding a sailfish just caught off the coast of Fort Lauderdale.

Big sailfish caught trolling the reef on our sportfishing charter out of Fort Lauderdale.

Barracudas are a top predator of the reef and they too come through this month.  There’s nothing out there a barracuda can’t eat.  Their razor sharp teeth can cut through anything, so a 5 pound barracuda can take a big chunk out of a 50 pound fish.  What happens a lot this time of year is that you are fighting a bonito to the boat and a barracuda comes up and bites the tail off your bonito on the way in.  Get your fish into the boat quick!

Lucky angler caught this big barracuda.

Nice barracuda caught trolling the Ft Lauderdale reef.

Some mahi-mahi are offshore if you go looking for them.  It helps to go out on a 6 or an 8 hour charter, so you have ample time to go offshore and plenty of time to troll around looking for fish.  With the summertime dolphin bite, it’s all about covering a lot of ground with your lures out and following weedlines, chasing birds and looking for floating debris.  The great thing about summertime mahi-mahi fishing is that when you do find that school of mahi after trolling for them for so long, it’s usually a big school of them and you can load the box.  Dolphin fishing is often described as hours and hours of boredom, interrupted by a moment of panic.  The dolphin of the summer are generally schoolie sized fish, 3-4 pounders.

Guy holding 3 dolphin at the dock, one is being held by his mouth

A few nice dolphin caught on our sportfishing charter.

Sharks are the kings out there and along with all the commotion happening on the reefs with the big runs of bonitos, come the sharks.  Bull sharks and dusky sharks are biting best right now, but you never know what kind of big game shark you might catch when soaking a couple big shark baits out in 200-300 feet of water.  We caught a huge tiger shark a week ago that must have weighed over 500 pounds.  There are some massive sharks biting in July and August in south Florida.

Nice lemon shark next to the boat during our shark fishing charter in Fort Lauderdale

Big lemon shark caught on our sportfishing charter out of Fort Lauderdale

Summer is one of my favorite times of year.  The action is great so everyone usually catches fish and they are bigger fish at that.  In the summer months, the bonitos bite better in the mornings and the tunas and mahi-mahi usually bite better in the afternoons.  Good luck to everyone fishing out there this month.  I’ll sea ya on the water.

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

Group holding a bunch of bonitos and kingfish

Nice catch of bonitos, kingfish and tuna on our sportfishing charter

Girl holding a big kingfish aboard the Catch My Drift in the Fort Lauderdale Intracoastal Waterway

Nice kingfish caught by this fisher gal on our drift fishing trip

Nice grouper caught deep dropping

Big black grouper caught while deep dropping over a shipwreck.

Jun 18
1

Fort Lauderdale Deep Sea Fishing

By | Drift Fishing Reports, Offshore Reports, Sportfishing Charter Report, Swordfishing Charter Reports | No Comments

 

3 guys kneeling next to their mixed bag of fish they came back in with on a charter

Nice mixed bag of fish caught on a half day sportfishing charter

The reef action lights up this month with lots of bonitos, kingfish, barracuda and blackfin tunas biting.  We’re catching them trolling, the best technique of sportfishing during the summer months.  Trolling is a technique of dragging lures and rigged baits, up and down the reefs and along the edge of the Gulfstream to try to catch whatever we come across.  Its the best technique in the summer months because the fish are all scattered over the reefs and moving around, so it takes some traveling and looking around for them to find ’em.   Action in the summer is great.  While you are trolling, you will periodically hit little flurries of action on bonitos, kingfish, blackfin tunas.  Sometimes a big barracuda, wahoo or even sailfish jumps on the line.  You never know what you might catch when you are trolling.

Teenager holding a blackfin tuna on the gaff freshly brought out of the water.

Nice blackfin tuna just gaffed and brought into the boat on our deep sea fishing charter.

Drift fishing is awesome in the summers months.  On our day trips, we’re drifting over the reefs so you can bottom fish with a chicken rig or fish for muttons with a longer leader.  On the day trips you can also float a kingfish line out there in hopes of a big kingfish bite.  You never know what you’ll catch drift fishing in the summertime.  June is a month for mutton snappers, big mangroves, kingfish and red groupers.  Night fishing is just as good.  Snappers are biting really good.  June is the mangrove snapper spawn.  They bite really good at night, sometime off-the-scale-good.  Mangroves usually have a few nights in the summer when they snap!  They do their annual spawning along the reefs, and then throw caution to the wind and eat everything they come across.  It’s a great snapper fishing event and we have some epic snapper catches this month on our night anchor fishing trips.

Kyle holding a big mutton snapper next to the lady angler who caught it, aboard the Catch My Drift.

Nice mutton snapper caught on our deep sea drift fishing trip by this fisher gal.

Wreck fishing is quite good in the early part of the summer.  The amberjacks from the Spring months were late this year and are still biting strong on most of the wrecks over 200ft of water.  Almaco jacks too are biting very good.  Groupers are a bit more elusive but they are there if you fish for them.  I like to fish a bit deeper for grouper 300+ feet of water for the snowy groupers.  We’re catching them on some of the deep wrecks and on an all day private charter, we can load up on the snowys going from wreck to wreck until we find them biting.  Vermillion snappers are biting too, but with all the action on the reefs, we haven’t been fishing for them much.

3 guys at sea in a boat holding up a big grouper, amberjack and some tilefish.

Nice catch of bottom fish on this deep dropping sportfishing charter out of Fort Lauderdale

Offshore fishing in Fort Lauderdale is more hit or miss.  Outside of 350ft of water, the continental shelf starts to really slope off.  It gets deep very quickly.  2 miles offshore, you are in over 600 feet of water.  Out there in these depths, there are only 2 main targets:  mahi-mahi dolphin and swordfish.  Both require really long trips to target because of the time requirement.  For dolphin, you need to cover some ground out there, the more nautical miles the better.  Every mile of territory you troll over increases your chances of finding dolphin.  Some days you find them in the first 15 minutes.  Much more often, it will be hours and hours before you find your first fish.  The good thing about dolphin is that they are gregarious.  If you find one, you are likely to find a whole school of them out there, sometimes enough to load your entire fish box in shot.  My dad always described dolphin fishing as, “hours and hours of boredom, interrupted by a moment of panic”.  It is really exciting when you do find the dolphin out there and your effort that you did to find them pays off.

Father and son with a boatload of mahi-mahi caught on our sportfishing charter.

Great catch of mahi-mahi on our sportfishing charter on Father’s Day weekend.

Swordfish requires it’s own trip.  You have to go even further offshore, about 15 miles offshore to get to swordfishing territory.  There are 2 ways to fish swordfish.  You can daytime deep drop for them or you can night drift for them.  Night drift is nice because you can use hand crank rods and put 4-5 lines out as you are fishing near the surface.  Daytime deep dropping only allows you to fish one line at a time and it must be an electric reel because of the extreme depths out there.  Check out our YouTube channel (and subscribe!) to see the cool swordfish video I just posted.  Swordfish are truly epic fish, both a world class trophy gamefish and a great eating fish as well.  And they get to be very large.  If you are interested in a swordfish charter, the summer months are excellent for swordfishing.

It should continue to be some great fishing this month for both our drift fishing and our sportfishing charters.  There’s lots of action to be had, you just have to go out and wet a line.  Good luck to everyone fishing with us.  I’ll sea ya on the water.

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

 

Looking down into the fish box, filled with mutton snappers, yellowtail snappers, red grouper, mangrove snappers and grunts.

Nice pile of fish in the fish box during our Ft Lauderdale drift fishing trip.

2 guys on a boat in the ocean holding about a 12 pound blackfin tuna they just caught.

Nice tuna caught on our sportfishing charter out of Fort Lauderdale.

A couple guys holding their catch of a blackfin tuna and 2 nice kingfish, on a boat while out in the ocean.

A nice tuna and a couple kingfish caught on our sportfishing charter.

Kyle holding a mutton snapper next to the kid that caught him aboard the Mary B III drift fishing boat.

Nice mutton snapper caught by this fisher kid on a drift fishing trip out of Fort Lauderdale.

May 21
0

Fort Lauderdale Fishing Charters

By | Drift Fishing Reports, Offshore Reports, Sportfishing Charter Report | No Comments
Bobby holding up a big black grouper

Nice black grouper caught shipwreck fishing in Fort Lauderdale

We’re getting some smoker kingfish, mahi-mahi, blackfin tunas and groupers on our Fort Lauderdale fishing charters this week.  The fish are out there, you have to work to catch them but they are there.  Trolling the reef is producing the best action.  Fish tend to congregate in the same depth for hours at a time, so when you notice you keep getting bites when trolling through a specific depth, keep working that area.

Lucky angler holding his nice red grouper on the back of the drift boat.

Nice red grouper caught on our drift boat.

Wreck fishing is producing some good numbers of fish too.  Groupers and amberjacks are biting on 200-300ft shipwrecks.  Grouper season just opened so there are some pretty big fish on those spots still.  Amberjacks are also biting around these same wrecks; the magic number seems to be wrecks in the 200-300ft depth range.  These wrecks hold the best numbers of fish this time of year.

Nice dolphin caught drifting on the Fort Lauderdale reef

Nice dolphin caught drift fishing aboard the Catch My Drift

Sharks, sailfish and mahi-mahi are all the big game fish that are biting on the top of the water.  Kite fishing is effective in catching these surface feeding gamefish.  Kite fishing is done by flying kites and attaching the baits to pressure release clips strung along the kite.  The kite keeps the live baits suspended on the surface and splashing.  This draws the surface predatory fish in like ringing the dinner bell.  The action isn’t as good as trolling, but this is the technique best used to get big bites on big fish on the surface.  I love kite fishing in May, we catch some cool fish.

Ashlee with some big kingfish holding a big one

Ashlee with some big kingfish we caught on our sportfishing charter

Your best bet in May is to stay flexible.  Different fish bite on different days, and there’s a million variables that affect the bite.  Be ready to change tactics if you hear a different tactic working.  The fishing in May is good, so you can usually find some pretty cool fish.  Good luck to everyone fishing over the next few days.  I’ll sea ya on the water.

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

Nice red snapper being held by the girl who caught it.

Big red snapper caught by this fisher gal on our sportfishing charter