The weather is exactly (for a change) as predicted with clearing skies and essentially no rain with every day in the mid eighties. This will be our weather at least for the next five days. As predictable as the weather seems to be the fishing in Fort Lauderdale has been very unpredictable.
Once again a good catch can be a short memory with many lulls in the action thereafter. As you can see by a couple of our photos we have been deep dropping out in 700 plus feet of water and Golden Tiles have been available due to light current conditions. Some have been good fish as seen with a couple of our recent crew of 4 Maine and Massachusetts cousins who joined us here aboard the Marlin my Darlin.
There are some Sailfish, with inside of 250 feet of water seeming to be best. The Sailfish in the photo with this report took a surface trolled strip bait in 85 feet of depth. Mahi-Mahi have been scattered anywhere from 80 feet to 500 feet and have been either singles or pairs. Keeper sized but certainly no danger of bottoming out your fish scale. Happy to see them when they come into the spread.
Blackfin Tuna off the edge and late in the day again seems to be the time to hunt them. Most are small but there are big ones as the nice one seen in Chicago Fireman Greg’s grip. That fish took the last bait left out in the spread as we prepared to head back to the dock on a late afternoon charter. So “it ain’t over till its over” as the late colorful Yogi Berra said. We were all very happy to see that fish join us in the last minute.
Our last report mentioned that Winter may be over for us here as we saw manatees that were headed north. Well… saw a single and a group of three today, again they were northbound. And moving steadily and with some pace, as far as manatee speed goes.
Tight lines and good fishing.
* bright spot: Swordfish are biting, and biting well. That info through the coconut telegraph, as none of us here in the charter fleet has had the opportunity to try them. Give us a call, we are ready and on that note do have two trips booked for them beginning later this month.