Fishing in Ft. Lauderdale is continuing to produce good numbers of Kingfish. The vast majority of the fish on our fishing trips are what we term "school fish" Kings. Almost all sizes of Kings are thought to school together with the exception of the really large ones (we have a term for them as well, "Smokers"). These guys are a long way from being "Smokers". In fact they aren't even really larger schoolies. But they are here in good numbers as we said and we are happy to see them here on the Marlin My Darlin. Throw in a few stray Bonito here and there and that is 90% of the catch. There are other fish available but a good word for these fish would be "prevalent'.
Most of these school sized Kings are inside of 120 feet of water with many of them holding in 85 to 90 feet. These little guys are eating machines and will hang closely to the baitfish schools on the reefs. They also can be found near shallow water wrecks as those structures hold bait as well. Even the smallest of wrecks can hold these fish and the area just above our inlet has been good for them.
The size limit for a legal fish is 24 inches from the tip of the nose to the fork of the tail. We of course refrain from gaffing any fish that looks close to that 24 inch length. On some days we have been tossing back up to half of these Kings as they are "shorts". That's a nice term, much nicer than say "Runts". Measure them quickly and back over the side just as fast if they are in fact "short".
Legal or short it is good to see the good numbers of these fish offshore. Hopefully management for them is right on course. Strict limit of two legal sized fish per angler. Here @ All-Inclusive Sportfishing we abide by the rules (as should everyone as enforcement is very strict here).So we are picking away at these Kings and even though they are smaller it's still action and fun for our charters. We can't really control the size, but in all honesty bigger would probably be better.
Pictured is a fun group we had with these recently typical sized Kings and the one fellow holding a Bonito as well. He insisted on the Bonito for the picture (did you know that Bonito means beautiful in Spanish?) I won't try to spell their names here but their choice of lubricant wasn't Tequila. Fun bunch of guys in town, from way out of town, for business. Hint….Vodka.
