Huge Fish Are Biting in Fort Lauderdale- Big Mako & Sailfish
Capt. Rod Roydhouse
January 25, 2017
Fort Lauderdale - Saltwater Fishing Report
There are some big fish biting off the coast of Fort Lauderdale this week. Sailfish action is at it's best for the whole year. January and February is the peak of sailfish season and this year is turning out to be an excellent year for sailfishing. Sails are biting best in 100-180ft of water, the area known as "Sailfish Alley" which is just a mile off the Fort Lauderdale beaches. There are 2 main ways to catch sailfish... trolling and live baiting. Both have their advantages. Live baiting is probably the best technique as we use kites to suspend the live baits on the top of the water. The baits create fish-in-distress signals that the sailfish pick up on from a great deal away. They hone in on the bait and once they see that goggle eye splashing on the surface, they just can't resist. Kite fishing requires wind, which is a drawback on light wind days. However, if the wind is light we can use the outriggers to slowly bump the baits around over the reefs and accomplish the same thing. The other technique is trolling, where we drag artificial lures and rigged baits around, simulating a school of scared fish trying to get away from the sail. The advantage to trolling is that you can cover a lot more territory when dragging the baits as opposed to kite fishing which is relatively stationary. The other advantage to trolling is that you can catch other species such as blackfin tuna (which are biting good right now) as well as kingfish, bonito, barracuda and sometimes even a wahoo. This is a great month to do either technique.
Shark fishing season is here! I wait for shark fishing season all year as we catch the biggest fish in the ocean. There's no time of year that is more exciting. Hammerheads, mako, thresher, bull, dusky and all the reef sharks are starting to make their way down our coastline in their annual migration. It's a huge migration of sharks, where hundreds of thousands of these apex predators come through our waters, feasting on all the pelagic fish they can find as they pass by. These sharks use the Gulfstream current as a conveyor belt to help them cover large distances in a short amount of time and without expending as much energy. Over the next few months, we at New Lattitude Sportfishing specialize in shark fishing so we take a lot of anglers out on our shark fishing charters. I don't want to say it is guaranteed, because fishing never is. But this is the best time of year to catch monster (and I mean MONSTER) sharks. Just the other day we caught a huge mako shark. We catch lots of reef sharks all the time but mako sharks are special because they are rare for our waters and they are the only shark that jumps. Mako make awesome jumps where they can reach 20+ feet out of the water on a jump. It is pure exhilaration. From February through May is the prime season for shark fishing off our coast so if you want to catch the biggest fish of the sea, now is the time to come fishing.
Good luck to everyone fishing over the next couple weeks. I look forward to seeing you hooked up in our fighting chair with a monster gamefish. Sea you then!
Capt. Rod Roydhouse
954-707-2147
www.NewLattitude.com
More Fishing Reports:
