Drift Fishing and Sportfishing Trips Slaying the Groupers
Capt. Paul Roydhouse
November 9, 2017
Fort Lauderdale - Saltwater Fishing Report
Lots and lots of groupers are hitting the docks this week on our Fort Lauderdale fishing charters. November is not particularly the best season of the year for grouper, but this year seems a bit different. Lots of big black, red and gag groupers are being caught on the reefs and wrecks on our various deep sea fishing trips. Our drift boat, the Catch My Drift, is hitting a lot of reds and black this week. While some of them have been an inch or 2 short, a lot of them have been keeper size. In years past, many if not most of the groupers we catch on the drift boat have been shorts (since they increased the size limit and off-season). But this year, the increased fish breeding has shown its benefit as many of the groupers we're hooking into are well over the size restrictions, some of them extra, extra big. This is a good indication that the grouper populations are increasing year on year.
Our sportfishing charters, which fish the bottom by dropping live baits over a shipwreck are also pulling up their fair share of big groupers. Some of the black groupers we've caught over the past month have been the biggest I have seen ever caught in Ft Lauderdale. Also, amberjacks and almaco jacks are biting aggressively, giving us a little variety and some big game fish to pull on. Cobia are more rare here in Fort Lauderdale, but we're getting into a few of them as well. You never know what you might have on the line when you hook into a big fish on a shipwreck. There's a lot of big fish that it could be.
Daytime or night drift fishing trips are getting lots of snappers on the bottom as well. Nice size yellowtail snappers and lots of them, make up the majority of our drift trip catches. This is expected as November and December are the last 2 great months for reef snapper fishing. In January, the yellowtails go in much shallower and tend to be significantly smaller than the yellowtail we catch in summer and fall. Regardless, there is good action on the bottom and the bottom fish (in my opinion) are the tastiest of all the fish. There's nothing better than a delicious yellowtail snapper fried up in the pan, or some grouper fingers. Good luck out there fishing this week everyone. I will sea you on the water.
Capt. Paul Roydhouse
www.FishHeadquarters.com
754-214-7863
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