Big Seas, Big Fish on our Ft Lauderdale Fishing Trips
Capt. Paul Roydhouse
January 28, 2018
Fort Lauderdale - Saltwater Fishing Report
The sea was angry this week with some of the roughest seas we've had all year. It usually gets pretty rough during the winter months. I like fishing the rough seas though, because choppy waters usually means big fish. This week, we've had an outstanding bite on sailfish, big sharks, barracuda, wahoo and more. January isn't a month for great general action. In fact, we usually catch a lot less fish this month than we do in other months throughout the year. But we also catch some of our biggest fish of the year this month too. What we sacrifice in numbers of fish, we make up in size.
Drift fishing trips are catching some snappers, some grouper, a few kingfish, small tunas and other oddball fish. There's a fast drift with all this wind, so I always recommend heavier than normal lead when fishing the bottom, or adjust your technique due to the weather and fish a slow trolling bait. With the drift as fast as it is on the windy days, you're pretty much trolling out there, so fish accordingly. I like to fish a streamline, whole ballyhoo or sardine as bait. This is a great bait for kingfish or tuna if you use a light sinker (maybe even a sailfish if you are extremely lucky) and good bait for larger mutton snapper or grouper if you use a heavier sinker.
On our sportfishing boats, with the strong winds, we've been concentrating on trolling and kite fishing. Trolling is effective because it allows you to cover a great deal of territory out there on the ocean, covering different reefs, wrecks, depths and zones. This is working well for catching kingfish, tunas, mackerels, bonitos and sometimes even a lucky sailfish or wahoo. Kite fishing is great with this weather, because we can fish our heavy kites and not have to fight with them to keep them aloft. We're live baiting when we fish the kites so we're targeting all the topwater predator fish such as mahi mahi, sailfish, sharks and barracuda. We catch most of our biggest fish of the year using the kite fishing technique.
This is a great month for fishing Fort Lauderdale. Not lots of action but the bites we do get are usually from nicer, more sizable fish. Good luck to everyone fishing this week. Take your Dramamine and hold on tight, because it's going to be a bumpy ride. And eat a good breakfast because you are going to need some energy to fight that monster fish. Make sure your breakfast tastes good because you might taste it twice. Just kidding. Good luck fishing out there everyone. I'll sea you on the water.
Capt. Paul Roydhouse
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