A lot of great action the past couple days fishing in Fort Lauderdale. As to be expected in Spring, the wreck are holding some really nice fish. Groupers and Jacks are biting really good, in fact when they are really turned on, you can’t even get a bait fully down to the bottom before it gets eaten. Every Spring, amberjacks, groupers, cobia, barracuda, sharks and other game fish, congregate on the wrecks between 150ft-350ft of water. For many years, Fort Lauderdale was involved in an Artificial Reef program and sank many old and retired boats, intentionally to create habitat for fish and make great dive/fishing locations. It worked like a charm. After years of sinking many of these “wrecks”, we have lots of great fishing spots right in our backyard.
The amberjacks are here!! The amberjacks are fully concentrated on the wrecks and for the next few weeks to a month, we’ll be in the peak of amberjack season for the whole year. All of them are big fish, and if you’ve ever caught an amberjack before, you know how incredibly strong they are. Amberjacks are extremely aggressive fish and won’t let a bait float near them for more than an instant if they are hungry. They are famous for the “insta-bite”, which is when we drop down to the bottom and are immediately hooked-up when we come tight on the bait.
Groupers and cobia are also present on the wrecks right now. The picture at the top of the really big fish is a warsaw grouper, the largest grouper that we catch fishing in Ft Lauderdale. We caught this fish yesterday on an afternoon sportfishing charter and this one weighed over 80 pounds. Other groupers that we’re catching right now are gag groupers, black groupers and snowy groupers. A few cobias are also hiding on the wrecks. We’ve caught a few nice cobias this week on these spots.
Sharks and barracudas, the top predators are also around these wrecks, feasting on easy prey. Hammerheads and bull sharks are the main sharks we’re catching and they can reach up to 10 feet in length. Scattered mahi-mahi, tuna and wahoo are around as well, but the best action on big fish is definitely found fishing the wrecks. Good luck out there everyone, I’ll sea ya on the water.