Fort Lauderdale Party Boat Fishing Trips Doing Great
Capt. Paul Roydhouse
May 19, 2019
Fort Lauderdale - Saltwater Fishing Report
Lots of snappers, groupers, kingfish and mahi-mahi are biting on our drift fishing trips out of Fort Lauderdale this week. Grouper season opened up a few days ago and the bite is hot. Lots of red groupers, with a few big black groupers are biting out there. Fish the bottom with squid is all I have to say about that. Groupers love squid and they have a hard time saying no to a tasty chunk of squid dangled over their head.
Mutton snappers are biting strong this year. We're catching SO MANY undersized muttons that we are just throwing back left and right. With all these short muttons, I know the mutton snapper fishing next year is going to be great. Last year, they raised the minimum size of muttons from 16" to 18". It's painful to throw back all those muttons, but it's already making for a lot more muttons on our Fort Lauderdale trips. Even with all the throw backs, we're still catching a good amount of keepers. Almost always at least a few keepers per trip and sometimes a whole bunch.
Kingfish and dolphin are making a run this week. We usually don't catch many kings or mahi on our drift boat, but this week they are biting. It's good to see mahi-mahi showing up for us out here right on the reef. We're catching the mahi and the kingfish on our flat line drift rigs. It's a couple of long shank hooks, one hooked through the eye of the other, so that it forms a make-shift wire leader. For bait, we use a whole sardine and little to no sinker (either super light or none at all). You want to keep the bait under the surface, but not too deep. This rig is working well for us this week to target the bigger topwater and mid-depth species (kings, mahi, blackfin tuna).
Good luck to everyone fishing out there. The fish are biting. This is our best month of the year for fishing so get out there while the bite is hot. I'll sea ya on the water!
Capt. Andy Roydhouse
www.FishHeadquarters.com
754-214-7863 cell
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