The sailfish bite is red hot off the coast of Fort Lauderdale. Every day this week we’ve caught multiple sailfish with a few days catching 8 or 9 in a single trip. It’s been easy fishing too, just go out the reef, throw out a few live baits, wait a few minutes and whammo! Sailfish On! The extra cool winter this year has really got them feeding. All the sailfish we’re catching now are between 7-8 feet in length, and some really fat fish this year too. I don’t know how long the sailfish snap is going to last, but let’s enjoy it while we can.
Great action on the reef with some other species too. Kingfish are biting fairly well while trolling the reef. They can be hard to find some days, but if you troll long enough, you should hit a school of them and load up. There are some smoker kings out there to be caught this time of year. And whenever trolling the reef, you can also hit tuna, mahi-mahi and wahoo. There haven’t been a lot of them caught, but some monster wahoos hit the dock this week. A couple of them over 50 pounds which is huge for Fort Lauderdale.
There are some fish showing up around the wrecks this time of year. Groupers are biting but most groupers are restricted this season and are catch and release. There have been some monster amberjacks caught dropping live bonitos down to the bottom. Amberjacks should start showing up strong around the wrecks within the next few weeks for their big February-March migration. We’ve caught a few big toothy critters lately that have been inhabiting the wrecks; barracuda and a couple huge bull sharks. The predatory fish are begining to show up.
There’s some excellent fishing out there these days off Ft Lauderdale. The next few weeks of fishing should continue strong and lead us into the spring fishing season. Sea ya on the water.
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