There's a great snapper bite happening in Fort Lauderdale this week. Mangrove snappers, yellowtails, mutton snappers, hog snappers and more are biting on our daily drift fishing trips and night anchor fishing trips. On the day trips, we're catching them fishing the bottom with a half a plug of a cigar minnow. A 2 ounce lead and a 3-4ft leader is getting the best bite. Using this rig, we're catching some nice mutton snappers, a few big yellowtails and mangroves and the occasional hog snapper. We're also catching some porgies, grunts, triggers, margartes and other bottom dwellers. Groupers will also take this bait, but they are not in season right now. Daytime action is very good on our drifting trips this week.
Night fishing is the best time to go for snappers. While snappers will bite good during the day, they are traditionally nocturnal feeders and they come out of the woodwork to feed on our night anchor trips. They throw caution to the wind at night and come out of their holes to hunt for prey. Squid is usually the best bait to use at night for snappers. You can catch bigger snappers using a single hook rig with a longer leader, but a chicken rig is best for catching the most numbers. A lot of the yellowtails we catch in the winter are small ones… about half are keeper size ones and half are throw-backs. The 'tails are beginning to grow though as more and more larger yellowtails are hitting the deck each night. The mangroves we catch this time of year are very large, as are the muttons.
The best thing about snapper fishing is that you don't need to be an expert to catch them. Yes, more experienced fishermen have the advantage and will catch more than the average angler. But with snappers, it's a numbers fish and even inexperienced first time fishermen should be able to hook into and catch a nice bunch of them. At night, snappers aren't the only fish to come out to feed. We catch an array of other fish at night including eels, chubs, jacks, blue runners, sharks, scorpion fish, lionfish, groupers and too many to mention other species. You can catch anything at night and on the trips this week, we certainly have. If you'd like to come on an action packed fishing trip and catch some great eating fish to take home an fry up, come fishing on a night anchor fishing trip. Good luck to everyone fishing this week. Check out our facebook page to see all our catches as I post a lot more fish pictures from our daily trips there. www.facebook.com/FishingHQ
Tight Lines,
Capt. Andy Roydhouse
754-214-7863
www.FishHeadquarters.com
