Don and Anna Grinder, along with their son, Jackson, and family member, Mike Mock with his children, Gabe and Sophia, chartered the Top Shot Sportfishing charter boat team for a private deep sea charter boat sport fishing trip in Fort Lauderdale, FL. As they boarded the boat, they were greeted by Captain Zsak and mate, Russ, from the Top Shot Sportfishing Charter Boat Team. When Anna was 7 years old, she came out fishing with the Top Shot Sportfishing team and her grandfather, Charles, and the family has been fishing with us ever since – for 42 years. As always, it was a pleasure to see my old friends and to see new members of the family on this trip.
Fifteen to twenty minutes after leaving the dock, lines were in 120 ft. of water at the sea buoy in Fort Lauderdale, 1.8 miles from shore. If you venture off another ¼ of a mile, you would find yourself in 500 ft. of water, which we exclusively have here in Fort Lauderdale, due to Fort Lauderdale’s extreme drop off. The further north you go, the further the drop off swings off shore.
We started trolling with two plainers down, both #8’s, one with a pink and blue sea witch in front of a double hooked Bonita strip and the other with a #2 blue reflector drone spoon. For surface baits, we went with two Ballyhoos and two Bonito strips. I started off by telling the kids that they needed to call out for the fish to come – “here fishy, fishy”. From that moment, Gabe never stopped calling the fish and it worked - the action started. As I trolled from one artificial wreck to the edge of the drop off and back again, there were numerous bait fish (flying fish) in the area so I kept working it while the anglers took turns reeling Bonitos and Kingfish, with the children starting off first.
Right short!! – there he is – as the black shadow made his appearance – Sailfish! – as the bill and dorsal got out of the water swatting at the Ballyhoo – a swing and a miss. Russ dropped the bait back to the Sailfish to entice him. Here he comes again chasing the bait, but the Sailfish missed it again! The mate repeated this over and over until the Sailfish lost interest and swam away. At that point the consensus was that the Sailfish must have needed glasses. Don, as he has done in the past, was a great help assisting the mate in wiring in the fish – thanks Don.
With a total of 13 Bonitas and 5 Kingfish, it was time to head back to the dock. 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. The mate fillet out the fish for dinner that night.
