Sailfish and Wahoo Biting Good, Snappers and Groupers Too
Capt. Paul Roydhouse
January 10, 2018
Fort Lauderdale - Saltwater Fishing Report
The sailfish were slow to start this year but have finally started showing up. The cooler weather this past week has gotten them biting. I was a bit worried. 3 cold fronts into winter and they really hadn't started biting that great. This week, they finally started up like they should be biting. Best bite is definitely in 120-180 feet of water, the tract of ocean affectionately known as sailfish alley. For sailfish, you can catch them trolling or live baiting.
Trolling is when we use artificial lures and rigged baits. We drive around the reef to cover as much ground as we can. We can catch anything on the troll. This time of year, we typically catch blackfin tunas, bonitos, kingfish, mahi and sometimes even big game wahoo and sailfish. You never know what you may catch and because of the variety of different bottom and spots you can cover when you are trolling, you can literally catch just about anything.
For live baiting, there are a few options. It all depends on how much wind there is that day. On days with little to no wind, you can choose slow-trolling live baits. It is very similar to regular trolling. Except we are dragging live baits around instead of dead and rigged baits. We can't cover anywhere near the same amount of territory when live baiting, but the live baits themselves make up for that when they emit their fish-in-distress vibrations. This calls fish in from a long ways away, basically saying, "Dinner's on!". This allows us to cover less territory in total, but with greater effectiveness. This is slow trolling live baits, which is the first method of live baiting. Kite fishing is out other technique of live bait fishing.
Kite fishing is the other technique of live baiting that we do, especially when the wind is up. For kite fishing, you must have a strong, steady wind or else it would be more effective to slow troll the live baits. When kite fishing, we fly either one or two kites. Along the kite line, there will be a couple of pressure release clips, which we use to hold the fishing line up high, suspended from the kites. This is the premise of kite fishing, to keep everything except for the baitfish itself out of the water. With the kites up, you are mostly immobile. You can make some slow, short corrections to location, and you do drift with the current, but you can't move easily. The kites are so effective because the hook-up ratio (ratio of fish that come up to eat the bait vs. fish that actually get hooked) is very high, and the fish-in-distress vibrations that the baitfish emit are much amplified when the baits are suspended from the kites and forced to keep their heads underwater. Kite fishing is far and away, the most effective method to target sailfish.
There's less fish in total to catch this month, but there are some of our biggest and best fish biting. This isn't the month for action, but if you want to catch the biggest fish that Fort Lauderdale has to offer, this is the season that you need to fish. Good luck fishing out there everyone. I will sea you on the water.
Capt. Paul Roydhouse
754-214-7863
www.FishHeadquarters.com
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