Jim and Madeleine Sharkey were down on vacation from Buffalo, New York and decided to charter the Top Shot Sportfishing charter boat team to do some deep-sea charter boat sport fishing in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
We headed out the inlet, and as soon as we passed the jetties, we started seeing weed patches stretching out to 500 ft. of water. This can be a good thing, but for the first square mile, there was so much weed, we were unable to fish there. We had to make our way out if it until the weeds cleared up. We were about a mile south and a half mile offshore from the inlet when we were able to start fishing at the drop off, which is in 120 ft. deep, off of Fort Lauderdale.
Our spread of baits were 4 surface Ballyhoos and two deep plainer lines with sea witch and Bonito strips. We headed in and of out the reef structure, working over good areas which held bait. The first strike we had was just on top of a rock pile structure, and it hit the long deep plainer bait 6 times before finally getting hooked. This fish started pulling out a lot of drag, and then, suddenly, a Sailfish came up jumping out of the water. Even with the plainer attached and with a long leader, this fish broke the surface multiple times and jumped. Jim was the angler, and he did a great job fighting the Sailfish and bringing him to the side of the boat. We were able to get the hooks out and safely release the Sailfish.
Next, we put our trolling gear back in the water and started catching Kingfish and Bonitos. The average size Kingfish weighed 8 to 10 pounds and the same with the Bonitos. We reset and tried to catch some Mahi Mahi’s offshore, but never did find any
It was now time to head back to the dock. The anglers retired into the a/c salon and enjoyed the relaxing trip back to the dock at Bahia Bar Yachting Center, 801 Seabreeze Blvd. Fort Lauderdale 33316.
