Snappers, Snappers and More Snappers on our Deep Sea Fishing
Capt. Paul Roydhouse
June 7, 2018
Fort Lauderdale - Saltwater Fishing Report
The snappers bite is the hot bite in Fort Lauderdale this week. We're catching them out deep, in shallow, on the bottom and near the surface. Snappers, snappers everywhere! First off, the snapper fishing on our drift fishing trips has been red hot. On our day trips, we're going out deep to 200+ feet of water to deep drop for the vermillion snappers. For these fish, we use a multi-hook chicken rig to try to catch them a few at a time. We use chunks of squid, ballyhoo, sardines and other cut bait on circle hooks. This technique works really well on the deep drop trips because when a snapper picks off the bait on one of the hooks, there are still a few other hooks with bait there to get the bite on. If we were using just single hook rigs, as soon as you miss a fish and don't have any more bait on that hook, you're fishing on credit and you won't get another bite until you reel it in and re-bait the hooks. Needless to say, the vermillion snapper deep dropping technique is working quite well these days and will usually yield a good catch.
Fishing the reef for snappers is working well too. On our daytime trips, we're getting into a few really big mutton snappers, which are the biggest of the snappers that we catch. Muttons are probably also the smartest of the snappers we catch because it takes some skill and finesse to get them to bite and get a hookup. For muttons, using a long leader with the sinker well away from the bait works very well. Also, when fishing for muttons, they have very good eyesight so they shy away from heavy leaders. It's best to use fluorocarbon leader, which is expensive line, but it is totally invisible to the fish and get a good bite when the bite is tough. There is a learning curve, but if you get good at it, you can really do well catching mutton snappers on our drift fishing trip.
Night fishing for snappers has perhaps been the best of all. At night, snappers throw caution to the wind and venture out far and wide in search of food. Snappers that usually stay deep within their holes during the daytime, come out at night to go after food and to mate. The past few nights on our anchor trips aboard the Catch My Drift, we have caught tons of mangrove snappers. They are biting like mad on the reef from the hours of 8pm-12am. That's right during our normal fishing hours on our night anchor trips. Last night, with only 9 anglers on the trip, we limited out on snappers. We caught so many, we ended up going kingfish during the last hour of the trip. The kingfish weren't biting nearly as good as the snappers were.
There's a lot more biting in Fort Lauderdale these days, but the snapper bite has been red hot. If you want to get action on some great, edible fish, try some snapper fishing out deep, in shallow or anywhere you can think of. They are chewing. Good luck to everyone fishing this week out of Fort Lauderdale. I'll sea ya on the water.
Capt. Andy Roydhouse
www.FishHeadquarters.com
754-214-7863 cell
More Fishing Reports:
