Sharks and Sails aboard the Hooked Up
Capt. Taco Perez
April 6, 2010
Fort Lauderdale - Saltwater Fishing Report
April 1
O yea here we are again on April fool's day and sure enough here comes Jeff, Kevin, the other Jeff and Richard and of course here comes there beer and those great smelling cigars. But the good news is they always bring the best sandwiches.
We know from the past that these guys are into eating fish and today I'm afraid that this is going to be a bit of a problem because there just has not been many dolphin fish around the kings are not biting and the groupers are out of season till next month.
So I come up with a plan we go off shore and try to find some dolphin fish but what we are really doing is working our way out to this big hump on the bottom where the depth goes from 850 feet to 1200 feet and see what we might pull out of there.
We don't find any dolphin fish on our way out there but once we get to where we want to drop conditions look good. There was a trickle of north current but not so much that we were going to have a hard time getting to the bottom.
Ok bombs away and down we go with our first drop. The second we hit bottom the rod started bouncing and shaking like mad. We found fish and good eating fish. When we reeled up our dropping rig we had 4 black berry rose fish. For those of you who have never had them before they are great eating fish with the whitest meat you've ever seen on a fish.
Ok now that we found fish we also got some bets going on as to how many we'll catch on our next drop. This was starting to be a lot of fun. On our third or fourth drop the rod really started to bend and pull 4 times harder than on the other drops and now the bets were flying back and forth. What kind of fish would this one be? How many? Would he stay on there or would we pull him off?
Man we were all in for a great surprise it turned out to be a barrel fish and for those of you that don't know about them they are better eating than the black berry rose fish and much bigger this one turned out to be about a 20 pounder. We were just having a great day and a bunch of laughs.
Then out of nowhere this rocket scientist decided that since we were only about 3 miles from where we do our day time sword fishing that we should run out there and see if we could pull a sword fish out of the seas today. Well the great idea came right out of my mouth and it turned out to be not such a great idea because just 3 miles out the the current was off the scale and it was just a sloppy ocean and it just was not going to happen. Next time I'll keep my mouth shut and not leave fish to find fish. (LOL)And we even caught a cuban night shark AKA dog fish
However we did manage to catch one dolphin fish trolling back in from our sword fish grounds.
Guys it was a ball and I sure we'll see you next April fool's day.
Captain Taco (954) 764-4344 or toll free (877) SEA-4344
April 2
Today we had Dominick, Nick, Tammie and Pat all from California out for a few hours of deep sea fishing aboard the Hooked Up
Today the name of the game was just catch fish so we decided our best bet was to troll the reef and try and catch some king fish.
Trolling started out on the slow side but we ended up catching 5 nice king fish.
Thanks again guys and next time well get you a sailfish.
Captain Taco (954) 764-4344
April 3
Today we started out with a family from Colorado Spring Colorado out for a few hour of fishing for some big game aboard the Hooked Up.
We stopped at the live bait boat on our way out and picked up some live goggle eyes and headed right out to 350 of water and set out both our kites with 3 live baits suspended from the kites and one big dead shark bait also suspended from the kites. We also set shark bait down about 150 feet and a finale bait down on the bottom.
It took quite a bit of waiting but while I was talking to Captain Greg I noticed our deep rod starting to bend over. I yelled out to Greg watch the deep rod and sure enough it bent in half and line started peeling off the reel like a freight train.
I can't recall if it was Nick or Pete that jumped in the chair but I do remember this we were in for a long fight. As we were fighting this sea monster Greg yelled up to me to watch out for our big dead shark bait that was suspended from the kite. As I looked up here came another big hammer head shark all over our kite bait. And just like that BAM we had two big fish going at the same time.
Sorry to say that after a few seconds we pulled of the one that had eaten our kite bait but I knew that we had the bigger of the 2 still connected.
I don't know exactly how long it took till but we finally had this big hammer head next to the boat but it was at least 45 min. We slid him in for a quick measurement and a couple quick photos and watched him dart away in great shape.]
Way to go guys!!
Ok so now as we pulled back into the dock we had our afternoon trip waiting for us. And these guys have fished with us so many times along with his mom and 2 sisters that they really don't hardly need the crew there anymore they could do the fishing trip by them self's.(lol)
We had the one and only Pete Pillone from George but his heart is still right down here in Sunny South Florida, His mom Barbra who lives down here his sister Pam from New York and last but not least
Pete's other sister Paula also from New York.
Now there is a couple of thing that had to happen on this trip first and most important Barbra likes to eat fish so we were going to have to catch her some good eating fish and second of all Paula has been trying to catch a sail fish with us for get this seven (7) years. I don't know why it is but when ever Paula gets on the boat the sails seem to just not be around.
So we started out doing some deep drops catching a few tile fish for Barbra. Ok so now one mission complete now it was time to put out the kite baits and see if we could finally catch Paula her first sail fish. I've always heard that if you want something done right you need to do it yourself so I was working the cockpit and Greg was driving on this trip.(Me being the modest guy that I am I had to throw that in LOL). Well it finally happen I seen a BIG sail fish going after our right long kite bait and before we knew it we were Hooked Up and Paula was in the chair screaming her longs out and putting it to this monster sail fish. I don't think I've ever prayed so much for a fish to stay on the hook as I did with this one. AND HE DID!!! Thank god Paula finally caught her first sail fish.
Way to go Paula and Pete, Barbra, and Pam thanks soooo much sorry I missed dinner the other night. Next dinner is on me.
Guys we are into April and the fishing is getting better every day so if you ever thought about fishing down here in Sunny South Florida the time is NOW come on down and let's get you Hooked Up.
Captain Taco (954) 764-4344 or toll free (877) Sea-4344
Fort Lauderdale Fishing Forecast:
Spring is here and so are the sharks and sail fish soon to be folowed by the smoker kings and the bigger dolphin fish
Target Species:
Sharks, sails King fish amber jacks ECT
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