Fort Lauderdale, FL - Offshore

Capt. David Ide
November 9, 2006
Fort Lauderdale - Saltwater Fishing Report

Novembers Great for sails

This is the month for sails.

Captain Chris and Capt. David had a charter and this is their story.Look at the pics on the web site Lady Pamela2.com

Fort Lauderdale always amazes me.

I brought my daughter down from New Jersey for a holiday weekend. As a birthday treat for the nine year old angler, we chartered Lady Pamela II. Insiders were saying that LPII is staffed -- captain and crew -- with hot-shots from the mega fishing tournaments, so we had to give it try.

First stop, live bait. One-pound rainbow runners were swimming up the chum line and just about jumping into the cockpit on my girl’s featherweight rig. “Wow, Dad,” Wendy beamed, “If these are the bait, how big are the fish?”

Next stop, 220 ft. of water near a wreck. Our line handler rigged one live runner with a long leader and a weight. He winked at us, said “Watch this,” and let’er drop. I was thinking about grouper, of course. The LPII had a really nice one in its ice chest from the previous charter. Well, we didn't have long to wait before the rod bent over and the line started to sing. That's no grouper, I thought. Shark? Then the line started to angle up really fast. No shark... cobia? I jumped into the fighting chair barely a second before the mystery was solved: A sailfish with the biggest spinnaker I'd ever seen was breaking water 250 ft. off the stern.

That fish danced and danced for my open-mouthed daughter. Eight or nine minutes later we were holding the seven-footer in the cockpit for a triumph photo. Then it swam happily back to its favorite wreck.

Whoever heard of bottom fishing for sail? Like I said, Fort Lauderdale is just amazing.

Wendy’s Dad

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