Great Dec Sail fishing off Ft Lauderdale, Saltwater Fishing Report

Dec 1
Ok here we are the first day of December and who better to start the month out with than Finattic Mike one our regular customers and friends.

Today Mike brought along his good friend Pete and Pete’s brother in law Siggy who is visiting from Schweinfurt Germany.

Ok I’ve got to take a min to tell you a bit about Finattic Mike. Well let’s just say that Mike loves his football team and he truly does stand behind them weather they are having a winning season or not.

As a matter a fact he loves his Miami Dolphins so much that he rented out part of a sports bar and invited as many people as he could just to get them to sign into a web site in order to get the staff @ Sun Life Stadium (Formally Joe Robbie Stadium) to take notice of him.

(AND THEY DID WOULD’NT YOU?)

Finattic Mike got to spend a few hours @ the stadium and got some great shots of him on the field (witch are not being released yet) who knows we might just see him during one of their games. He also spent some time in the locker rooms and of course what tour would be complete without getting to hang out with the cheerleaders!! Way to go Mike!!

Mike asked me to take this moment for him to thank all the guys @ Head Hunter Co. He also wants to thank all of his friends and everyone that supported him to get to be one of the Miami dolphin Mascots.

I guess I should introduce this Fanatic Mike to everyone so here are a few photos and then I’ll get back to the fishing!

Yep that’s Finattic Mike and yep he spend this morning fishing aboard the Hooked Up.
(Talk about having celebrities on board)

We had a ball fishing even though fishing really was not all that great today.
Mike caught a nice amber jack on one of the wrecks that lay in about 210 feet of water.

Than we went off shore looking for some dolphin fish and Pete and Siggy each caught one along with one skipjack tuna.
Guy’s thanks again for everything and Mike talk to Head Hunter Co we need to put some kind of Christmas fishing trip together by Head Hunter the best head you can put in a boat.

For those of you that might not know what a head is on a boat it is the toilet and it just so happens that head hunter is on the cutting edge of new technology with keeps our oceans clean from human waist.

Captain Taco (954) 764-4344 or toll free @ (877) SEA-4344
Dec 2

Today we had one of our regular customer/friends Brad from Fort Lauderdale taking out a few of his good friends for a morning of deep-sea fishing aboard the Hooked up. He brought Gary from Tampa, Al also from Fort Lauderdale and last but certainly not least Brent from Dallas Texas.

We had gotten an early start due to flights everyone had to catch later this morning.
So we swung by the live bait boat picked up a dozen live baits and off to the fishing grounds we ran.

We seemed to be the first boat out there and I’ve got to say that conditions couldn’t have looked any better.
We had a good north current and the water was a crisp blue in color.
We set out both kites with two baits suspended from each kite and the trap was set.
After waiting for a good 45 min and looking straight into the sun Captain J.J. thought he seen something near our left long kite bait and it seemed as if the bait was just walking away.

J.J. decided to treat it as if it were a sailfish. After a few seconds of just letting the fish just walk away with the bait J.J. locked up the reel and started reeling as fast as he could as I went ahead with the boat.

All of a sudden the line got tight the rod bent over and out came this big sailfish dancing all over the surface of the waves. We were Hooked Up and Brent waited no time getting in the chair for the big fight.
It took Brent a good 20 till finally he got his first sailfish to the side of the boat for a couple quick pictures and we all watched him swim away in great shape.

We caught Brent his first sailfish and that was what we were after but the bad news was that was the only bite we had this morning.
Brad thanks for bring the guys along and we look forward to fishing with you again soon.
Captain Taco (954) 764-4344 or toll free @(877) SEA-4344

Dec 3 and 4

Ok today’s trip actually started on the 3rd of December when Steve from Sudbury Ontario came walking down the dock around 10:00 am and decided to take the Hooked Up out for a few hours of deep sea fishing.
The only problem was that by the time we got out there the sailfish bite was just about done for the day.

We got some live baits and went right to kite fishing and did manage to get lucky and catch one.
But as it turned out Steve is a seasoned angler and he knew that we were having some cold front down here in Sunny South Florida right now and he also knew that cold fronts meant great sail fishing.

Usually when the sailfish bite is on it is on all day but for some reason the last couple days it seemed to slow down after around 11:00am.
So knowing that Steve said that he wanted to do a planned fishing trip for 7:00am in the morning.

We got up early picked up our live baits and went straight to kite fishing before any of the other boats were out.

5 min after getting our baits all suspended from the kites we all seen a sailfish coming after our right short kite bait.

Usually we let the fish take off with the bait for a few seconds than I’ll go ahead with the boat while the angler reels real fast in order to get the line tight and the hook in as quick as possible.

However this time seeing that we had only been fishing for about 5 min and we were already getting a bite we decided not to go ahead with the boat in hopes of maybe there being more than 1 fish there.

Things did not work out, as we wanted them to because as soon as J.J. started reeling tight on the fish he got all tangled up in our left short kite bait and we broke him off.

O well it was worth a try!!

However within 10 min here came another sailfish and this one was not quite so lucky.
This one got hooked and the fight was on. Once again we tried not to move the boat much because we were right next to a ship that was anchored up and the fish seemed to be around it. But Steve’s fish was taking out so much line that we had to go after him.

Once Steve got his fish next to the boat we tried to get a quick photo of this one but J.J. let his go fast and right back out went the kite baits.

It was going to be a great trip we had a good angler the fish were there and we seemed top be right on top of them.

I had called a couple of the other boats that were on there way out and let them know how deep of water we were fishing just to give them a better idea of where the fish were coming threw.
However I did not know that they were going to fish right next to me!
(They both know who they are lol)

Ok long story shorter we ended up catching and releasing 3 sailfish by 10:00am

We also watched 4 other sails all being caught within a half a mile of us. Folks the bite is on so come on down and lets get you Hooked Up.

Steve thanks again it was a blast and try not to freeze your butt off up there (LOL)
Captain Taco (954) 764-4344 or toll free @ (877) SEA-4344

Dec 8 th

This morning I knew we were going to have our hands full with this group.
I don’t know if it was the fact that all 5 of them were wearing captain’s hats or if it was the big bag full of all different kinds of liquor and mixings.

Let me introduce the players in today’s fishing trip.
We’ll start out with Mike from D.C and his brother Doug from Miami then we had Josh from St Augustine, James also from South Florida and Karl also from South Florida.

We went right to kite fishing and drinking (did I say that?) we set out both kites with 2 live baits suspended from each one,.
Truth being told fishing was slow today and no one was catching much but all the same we got lucky.

It all started out with Doug catching a 15 to 18 pound kingfish. All at once another bite and now James jumped in the chair and we were fighting our second fish.

Now let me just take a second to say a little about this fight between James the fish and O yea Mike. Not real sure what happen there but for some reason Mike decided to stop James from turning the handle and yep that one got away.

But that was not where that fight ended because Mike could not understand why James stopped reeling and James could not understand why Mike put his hand over the reel so James could no longer reel. (Did I tell you about the bag of booze??)

Well things just got better and better as the trip went along. But I must say that for fishing being on the slow side we kicked butt today.

Mike caught a 30 plus pound Wahoo. Doug caught a 8 pound dolphin fish along with his big king fish, Josh ended up boating another 20 pound plus Wahoo throw in a good dozen bonitos and we had a great trip.

James caught a nice buzz and a hard time from Mike. (LOL)
Guy’s thanks again I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much. Doug good luck with the new bride.

And last but not lease I would like to thank all of you for forgetting your bag full of booze it wont go to waste!!!
Captain Taco (954) 764-4344 or toll free @ (877) SEA-4344

Dec 9th

Well here comes one of our first cold fronts of the year and along with the cold fronts should be the sailfish right behind them.

We started out this morning with Hoss and his good friend Larry both from Saskatoon Saskatchewan Canada leaving tomorrow on a Crew Ship and decided to give their luck a try at some deep-sea fishing aboard the Hooked Up.

I’ve got to say that they could not have picked a better time of the year for some deep sea fishing here off the coast of ft Lauderdale.

We started out by getting some live baits from the bait boat and headed right out to 155 feet of water where this ship had been anchored up for the past 4 or 5 days.
We set out both kites right next to the ship with 2 baits suspended from each kite.

The baits were all set and the trap was set all we needed now was for some big hungry fish to come along and take a bite.
First of all the wait was for about 3 min and not only did a big sailfish show up but 2 showed up @ the same time.

WE WERE HOOKED UP WITH A DOUBLE HEADER SAILFISH!!

What a blast we had one fish going north and the other going south so these guys were on their own there was no chasseing ether of these fish down.

But at last after a good 35 min of back and forth tug a war we finally got both fish to the boat and released them both in great shape to fight again another day.

We ended up catching 3 out of 5 sailfish this morning and we still had another trip to take out today.
Hoss and Larry thanks again we had a ball and hope your cruse goes as great as your fishing trip.

As we pulled back to the dock we had Andy and Katie from Wyoming eager to give their luck a shot aboard the Hooked Up.

I must admin that the bite did slow down for us in the afternoon however we did finally get a bite and this was a monster sail fish this time and Katie jumped in the chair and the fight was on.

I think this one fish gave us more trouble then the double header we had caught earlier today but Katie hung in there and after a good 30 min we finally got her sailfish to the boat.
We got a couple of quick pictures and a quick measurement to have a replica trophy made of her first sail and watched him swim away in good shape.

To all of our anglers today thanks so much for fishing aboard the Hooked Up.
Captain Taco (954) 764-4344 or toll free @ (877) SEA-4344

Dec 11
Today we had some locals from Fort Lauderdale charter the boat because of their good friends came down to visit from New Jersey.

We had Edd from Sam’s marine one of the only Hatterass dealers that can still get old Hatteras parts and his wife Gail their good friend Doug and of course Pete who came down to visit.
At first fishing was a bit disappointing because it seemed the sailfish stopped biting but then all of a sudden we watched this fish hit the bait like a rocket and after 2 or 3 shots this nice Wahoo finally got a hook in his mouth and we were Hooked Up.

Pete grabbed the rod and the fight was on. Talk about a fast fish!! This fish ran to the left and then at a blink of an eye he darted off to the right. This went on for about 10 seconds next to the boat till this Wahoo zigged one to many times in front of captain Greg and it was all over for the fish in a second.
Nice going Pete and Greg that was one hell of a gaff shot.
We also caught a 5-foot black tip shark.
All in all a slow day but once we got back to the dock and heard what the other boats caught we were feeling a lot better about our catch.

Edd thanks again for bring everyone aboard the Hooked Up.
Captain Taco (954) 764-4344 or toll free @ (877) SEA-4344

About the Author:

Captain's Bio: My name is Taco and I run the best Fort Lauderdale fishing charter in South Florida! Heck, you won't have a better time on any fishing boat from West Palm to Miami. Why, because you get a sport fishing captain who has fished the waters of Fort Lauderdale for over 25 years. I know where to fish and how to fish for sailfish, marlin, tuna, dolphin, barracuda and just about anything that has gills. You also get a great time fishing with Hooked Up. We're not one of those stuffy South Florida fishing charters where the mate and captain are stuck on themselves and barely talk to you. We want you to party, relax, or whatever you like to do. Our job is to make your time on Hooked Up the most enjoyable you can have in Ft Lauderdale.