Great Drift Fishing off Fort Lauderdale
What a week of great fishing off Fort Lauderdale this week. We had some stormy weather, but the fish were already wet, so they didn’t care. There was a whole lot of action on the reefs. The wahoos bit for a few days. We caught a couple 30-50 pounders out there, averaging one big wahoo per trip for couple of days. We also caught a few good sized blackfin tunas, on both the drift fishing boats and the sport fishing boats. It was a great week of fishing in South Florida.
On this one trip on the drift fishing boat, we caught a boatload of mahi mahi. Capt. Paul was running the trip. He’s by far our most experienced captain at Fishing Headquarters. He’s been fishing out of Fort Lauderdale for over 50 years and he really knows the ocean out here well. Anyway, we set up on the first drift and were catching some kings and bonitos along with a few small mutton snappers. The action was pretty good, but we stopped getting bites because we were getting pushed in too shallow. Captain makes his second drift setup, a little deeper than before, and within a few minutes we’re getting a few bites. First fish that comes up is a small wahoo. Being an unexpected fish, Captain Paul looked around for something floating. Sure enough, about 50 yards off the bow was a big board floating.
He bumped the boat a little closer to the drifting board and Wham! Everyone on the boat was hooked up with mahi mahi. We only had 9 people on the trip, but with everyone hooked up at the same time, it was pretty chaotic. Most everyone got their fish in though, we only lost a couple. Most of the dolphins were 8-12 pounders but 2 of them were over 20 pounds. Everyone caught a few fish and it was a lot of fun. We spent almost 2 hours filleting all the fish up when we got back, and our clothes with all the fish blood on them had to get thrown out. I wish every day of fishing was as good as that.
We’ve been having a lot of good trips lately on the morning runs, with mahi mahi biting, kingfish, bonito, blackfin tuna, and the occasional wahoo. Mutton snappers have been biting good too for those guys that fish the bottom. Our night trips have been reporting great catches of yellowtail snappers with some mutton snappers mixed in. The yellowtails have been big flags, 2-3 pounds apiece. Other than that, the sailfish are just beginning to show up and we’re getting a few of them. The sailfish action should get better and better in the coming weeks and they should be around for a while. Its great fishing out there so get out if you can. Sea ya on the water.
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