Ed Kobialkd, along with his friends, Matt and Ken, from Connecticut chartered the Top Shot Sportfishing charter boat team to do some deep-sea charter boat sport fishing in Fort Lauderdale, FL. I received a call three days prior to the charter date for this trip from Ed wanting to charter the Topshot Sportfishing Charter Boat team after finding us on TripAdvisor with a 5 star rating out of 412 reviews. As they boarded the boat, we asked the anglers what they were interested in catching and unanimously they said Sailfish.
Fifteen to twenty minutes after leaving the dock we were in our fishing grounds in 120 ft. of water, 1.8 miles from shore. Due to our extreme drop off, if you venture off another ¼ of a mile, you would find yourself in 500 ft. of water. No where else off of the coast of the USA has such an extreme drop off as close to shore as we do here in Fort Lauderdale.
We started the charter trolling to read the waters with two planners down and four surface baits. Slightly off of the reef line to the north of Fort Lauderdale, a color change was forming – an excellent place to fly the kite. We put two kites out with two live Goggle eyes from each kite. After a 30 minute wait, our first predator made his appearance. Right short – Sailfish – dorsal out of the water, bill elevated as he chased the live bait around in a tight circle trying to capture his meal. Hooked up! – the Sailfish came out of the water, dancing across the blue waters and throwing in a couple of 360 degree jumps. What a show! Matt was our first angler and after a 15 minute battle, our mate, Troy, grabbed the leader and pictures were taken.
We reset the kite again on the same edge, which was in 150 ft. of water. As congratulations were passed around, another black shadow made his appearance on the right long. Sailfish! Ken was the angler – as he brought the fish close to the boat, the Sailfish gave one final jump trying to throw the hook, and, unfortunately, he was successful and swam away. We reset for a third time, and low and behold another Sailfish made his appearance and got hooked up. Ken was our angler and this time successfully brought the fish to the boat. Congratulations to both anglers and crew – a great job.
