Our fort Lauderdale fishing trips have been very similar to the charters we had the previous several days with fewer actual numbers of fish coming aboard but there are certainly some bigger fish available, and close to shore. Close to shore being within a mile or two of the beach.
Once again the small live ?Bullett Bonitos? have been front and center to a successful offshore fishing chaarter here aboard the Marlin My Darlin. The best places (but they can be anywhere) are the anchored channel buoys right out front and also on the up current side of large ships at anchor just above our inlet. We catch a lot of them around shipwrecks as well. They have proven worth searching for as they have produced some continued action recently for those larger fish. That Kingfish in the lead picture hit the scales @ 40 #. He fell for a live Bonito surface fished on a long rigger in water 100 feet deep. Depending on where you view this report the Wahoo pictured for our junior angler ate a surface bait live Bonito off of a flat line in 90 feet of water. Part of a double header but his twin broke us off. Sometimes they get the wire leader just right between their teeth, make a hard turn, and its over just like that.
Some Kings and Tunas have been biting on the troll with rigged dead and artificial baits but that has remained very erratic and can be frustrating. A bright spot other than the larger fish on the live Bonito has been the Tilefish which are biting better than the snappers. Grays in just over 400 feet of water have been biting well but they backed off yesterday with mainly smaller ones, but we feel they will pick back up. Goldens out in over 700 feet are biting well. Very few Mahi-Mahi and we are hoping for more to be available as this latest front rolls through. A few big Jacks on the wrecks.
Weather has been great here in Ft. Lauderdale. Saw where Steamboat, Colorado was up to 200 inches of snow. Can that really be accurate? Headline on our paper here three days back read ?40th anniversary of snow in Ft. Lauderdale?. 1st and only time here. I still have a photo of one of my best buddies that morning at the dock standing behind the fleet and holding up a chalkboard sign reading ?Ice Fishing Trips?. I’ll stop there, I’m giving away my years.
Tight lines and good fishing, Captains JJ, Matt and Tom @ Marlin My Darlin
