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Fishing Report for Ft. Lauderdale & Port Everglades
Capt. Cary Hanna
February 17, 2003
Fort Lauderdale - Saltwater Fishing Report
Offshore report updated (2-17-03)
Saturday, 2-15-03
This morning we were greeted with 15-20 knot winds out of the SE and seas were 4 to 6. We fished within 3 miles of the Port Everglades inlet with 3 men from the Michigan area. With 3 men aboard we caught 3 fish in 3 hours. The first came in on our down line and was a respectable 20+ lb. Kingfish. The next fish came in on the flat line baited with a nice Tinker Makeral, A huge Barracuda. As we brought him boatside we got a great look at his dentures, pulled the hook, and he flipped us the tail as he swam off. Next we switched up techniques and slow trolled our baits where we were getting most of our hits, in the 180 foot section of the reef. Within 10 minutes a Dolphin came in our spread and took a small Goggle Eye. We boated this fish at 10 pounds. We had enough of the pitching seas for the morning, so we headed into the intercoastal waterways for a beautiful tour of Ft. Lauderdales Riverfront and fished for tarpon with our leftover baits. We had our shot at a Tarpon but jumped him off.
(2-16-03) We headed offshore tonight to the Swordfishing grounds. As we started our late afternoon trip at 3:00 pm the winds were still howling from the south at at least 15 knots. This made it hard to catch our bait since the current was flying and our chum bag didn't seem to do much good, but to my surprise we were catching 1-2 lb. Bonita. The forecast was predicting 5-10 knots from the SW. All bets were on the wind change, and it did, by the time we got on our spot the winds layed down and we had a great night. On our first drift we set out our lines with live bait, a dead bait and large squid. It only seemed like 5 minutes when our 200 foot deep rod started releasing line very slowly. We waited for his next move or the next sign to start cranking. Within seconds the cylume stick was surfacing about 100 yards from the boat so we locked up and started cranking, he was on! With our new stand up gear we locked in Mr. Behn on his first Swordfish. He fought this fish for 20 grueling minutes and we boated a 75 lb. Swordy. The best part we realized was Mr. Behn caught the bait that caught the fish.
We have another Sword trip this Thursday night, 2-20-03.
Keeping you posted,
Captain Cary Hanna
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