Our Fort Lauderdale head boat, the Catch My Drift, has been doing very well on their morning and afternoon fishing trips these past few days. A lot of good kingfish action on the reef has been keeping most of the anglers busy. We’ve been getting most of our bites just out in front of the inlet, in about 100-150′ of water. This is the time of year that we catch some of our biggest kingfish in South Florida. Most kingfish average 8-12 lbs. but there are some 20-40 pound kingfish out there on the reefs right now. Those drifting with ballyhoo and sardines are catching the kingfish, while those fishing the bottom are getting pretty good bites on some bigger snapper. A long time customer of Fishing Headquarters, Jamaican Pete as we call him, caught this 7 pound mangrove snapper while drift fishing aboard Catch My Drift on a morning trip. This is a huge sized mangrove and probably the biggest mangrove we’ll catch all year.
There have been some mahi-mahi and tunas showing up just on the outside edge of the reef for us this week also. Mahi-mahi are usually an offshore fish, but they sometimes come in close this time of year; whenever the Gulf Stream swings in close to shore. The mahi-mahi we’re catching now, range in size from 6-20 pounds. If your fishing on the da trips, keep a whole squid nearby, in case a couple mahi-mahi swim up to the boat. The deep sea fishing on most of our morning and afternoon trips has been very productive with a lot of action.
Our night trips aboard the Mary B 3 have been catching some decent fish too. Our regulars are catching the yellowtail snapper good on the lighter tackle, and those fishing along the side of the boat at night are getting the larger mangrove and mutton snappers. A few cobia, a rare fish to catch out there most of the time, are being caught on the night trips this week. Last nights trip, we hooked into a 40 pound cobia and fought him for a half an hour. Of coarse, the cobia bit the lightest rod we had out there and we ended up breaking the line when he got tangled into another persons line. If we had him on almost any other rod we were fishing with that night, we would have caught him. BUMMER!! Anyway, good variety and good action on our night trips as well. Come on out fishing, the weathers been great and the fish are biting. Sea ya out on the deep sea.
-Capt. Andy
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