Fishing Report for Ft. Lauderdale & Port Everglades
Capt. Cary Hanna
October 7, 2003
Fort Lauderdale - Saltwater Fishing Report
Mako Madness, Again!
I feel the need to post this report with great enthusiasm. We have been keeping up with our Swordfishing, and the conditions have been changing from the usual flat calm summer nights. It still has been great for the most part, just a little more north to northeast winds lately. On Saturday night we ventured out in 15 knot northeast winds with seas at 2-4 feet, just perfect. The usual gulf stream pushes 3-4 knots to the north but with the nothern winds it slowed us down to about 1.5 knots and pushed us inside a good deal. It took us 2 hours before we got a bite. We weren't moving much to the north at all and we covered some great bottom as we could see on the Raymarine electronics with the 1000 watt transducer. Finally it came on the tip rod, the rod got slammed about 5 times before he finally ate. I set the hook emmediately and this fish went for bottom cover. Back and forth we went in the stand-up gear, the fish came to the boat 4 times but saw the lights and went back down a 100 yards each time. So now I decided to fight this fish in the total dark. We pulled out the hydra-glow light and left on just our nav lights, sure enough we got the fish boatside and he stayed long enough for us to stick him with the flying gaff. As he surfaced we were let down just a bit as we saw it was a huge Shortfin Mako shark. We all decided on shark steaks, since the meat on a Mako is great on the grill. So next was the chalenging bit since our last Mako went ballistic when we stuck him. Sure enough, as the flying gaff sunk in, he headed straight down and broke the mono holding the flyer to the pole. It was great to see the rope get tight as the other end was tied on to the cleat. Slowly we were able to pull him close to the boat and tie him down on the cleat. He didn,t like that to much as he thrashed hard agains't the boat trying to part ways. We got another rope and lassoed his tail and tied that rope tight up against the back cleat. That disciplined him a little further. After that we just dragged him around a little further till we knew he was dead. We released the gaff rope and let his head go towards the back while the tail rope was secure, dragged him a little more and pulled him in the boat. Back at the docks our fished weighed over 300 pounds. While we didn't find Mr. Swordy that night we still had that big game experience. We fought him for 2 hours between 3 guys taking turns on the crank. The great part was that he was hooked in the very corner of his jaw and his teeth never saw the mono.
We have an opening for the Miami Swordfishing tournament coming up on October 23rd thrue the 26th. This is a serious tornament, and I'm a serious angler. I come with all the neccessary equiptment and rigging and will guide you to the right bottom structure. I will fish on my boat or yours, call for pricing.
Till Next Tide,
Captain Cary Hanna
More Fishing Reports:
