Larry and John from Idaho and Charlie and Kelly from Alaska chartered the Top Shot Sportfishing charter boat team for a private deep sea charter boat sport fishing trip in Fort Lauderdale, FL aboard the Happy Day Today. As they boarded the boat, they were greeted by Captain Zsak and mate, Dave, from the Top Shot Sportfishing Charter Boat Team.
We started the morning catching Bullet Bonita, which are excellent bait fish, at the sea buoy north of Fort Lauderdale. We have been catching them since the beginning of the fall, and they will remain here in the South Florida and Fort Lauderdale reef system for another few months. By using smaller size jigs, we are able to catch up to 3 at a time. Once we had enough in our livewell, we moved off to fish an area that has a large reef structure with sunken ship wrecks.
I started fishing in 300 feet of water and slow trolled the livies from deep to shallower water and back out again, almost as if we were drawing a zig zag on the chart plotter. The first mate put out three surface lines, a high line, a right and a left rigger line with a fourth deeper down rigger bait. As we were heading down sea, one of the lines started to pull harder, as the bait was getting nervous trying to get away from a larger predator. The line snapped out of the rigger, and we had a fish on. The line started ripping out, and this fish pulled a ton of line. Charlie was the angler and started fighting with some gains and loss of line. The fish surfaced and up came a Wahoo; the first mate reached over and gaffed the Wahoo pulling him over the covering board and into the fish box. As soon as the Wahoo was in the box, my high line came ripping out, and we had another fish on. This fish turned out to be a large Barracuda around 50”; we took a quick photo and released the Cuda.
We went back to slow trolling the baits, and after a little bit, we had another big bite with a 3rd fish on. John grabbed the rod and started fighting the fish, which turned out to be another large Barracuda. We got the Cuda in the boat, removed the hooks and put him back in the water.
I decided to pick up and move to another area closer to the drop off. Lines were put back into the waters. All of a sudden, the mate yelled out “Shark”. A 9 ft. Hammerhead came cruising right up to one of our baits, and after a quick attempt and missing the bait, he swam away.
After a great charter, it was time to head back to our mooring location off the Fort Lauderdale Beach. The happy anglers retired into the a/c salon watching the plasma TV and enjoying the relaxing trip back to the dock at Bahia Bar Yachting Center, 801 Seabreeze Blvd. Fort Lauderdale 33316.
For a successful and adventurous deep-sea fishing charter in Fort Lauderdale FL for Sailfish, Shark, Bonito, Mackerel, Swordfish, Snapper, Wahoo, Tuna, Mahi Mahi and Grouper, contact Captain Zsak. - 954-439-8106 or email us at captdz@gmail.com
Website: www.topshotfishing.com.