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Fishing Report for Ft. Lauderdale & Port Everglades
Capt. Cary Hanna
January 4, 2005
Fort Lauderdale - Saltwater Fishing Report
Barrels of Fun
For the past 2 weeks there has been a stationary high pressure system that has been blowing consistently 20-30 knot winds. Seas have been relatively rough with a 4-6 foot chop being the norm. We had everyday booked twice last week and all but one trip cancelled on us.
We headed out early morning at 7 am in search for bait and nobody had the Goggle eyes. So we opted to catch our bait and purchased some of Captain Marks chum. We left the inlet and said hello to 6 foot swells and like usual I told the crew that she would calm down a bit as we left the inlet. As we reached the bait balls it wasn’t easy tying off. We had bait coming to the chum within 10 minutes. They were hard to get at first as they only ate the chum. So we fed them pieces of the chum and started getting all we wanted of Ballyhoo, Speedos and Runners. Within 30 minutes we had all we needed, at least 30 Ballyhoo, a dozen Speedos and 3or 4 runners.
I heard some reports from the south guys that were getting into double digit Sailfish and that’s what my crew had in mind. Mitchell White and his 2 brothers from North Carolina had taken there Dramamine sea sick pills the night before and this morning and were ready to spend the next 6 hours fishing.
We had almost 8 miles to go to reach the 2558 numbers and it took us almost an hour to get there as I tried to keep the crew dry. We set up in 180 feet and put out the Paratech sea anchor. We never made it to 140 feet as we just drifted with the current as the anchor held us from the wind blowing us in. All of the bites came around 160 feet. It seemed like the Sailfish were coming every 10 minutes. We caught 5 schoolie Dolphin all at once as one ate a ballyhoo on the kite and the rest we caught with our Runner jigs up to 8 pounds. I had to tie lead to the swivels on the kite lines just to keep the baits in the water. We caught and released 4 Kingfish, one was up to 30 pounds. One ate a Speedo on the far kite line and the others ate more Speedos and a runner on the flat lines and deep lines. We had a small nightmare with one Sailfish who came jumping towards us and swam under the anchor ropes then started jumping again and went over the anchor ropes. I remembered how much I hated using the sea anchor over the reef.
All of our Sailfish ate Live Ballyhoo on the kite and flat lines. When they eat the ballyhoo it’s almost always an easy hookup. I like to hook the Ballyhoo in the mouth and out through the gill plate. Their gill plate is so strong the hook will never pull loose from a hard hit. My set up was TLD 20’s spooled with 30 pound and I tie 50 pound leader via uni to uni knot. Then I tie on # 5 wire via a 10-12 turn Albright knot and twist a 5/0 Salmon hook, works every time.
By the end of our day we caught and released 7 Sailfish, kept our 5 Dolphin and released 4 Kingfish. By the time we made it back to the dock we were beat up pretty bad and only one of the crew was a bit sick but still made it through. Mitchell was one happy guy with plenty of Dolphin filets and I was one happy Captain with one of my best tips ever and I didn’t even sell a Sailfish mount.
Till next Tide,
Captain Cary Hanna
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