The summer fishing action in Fort Lauderdale really impressed me this year. Bonitos, bonitos and more bonitos than we've caught in the past 3 years put together. The king mackerel were biting awesome this summer as well. With all that bait in the water, there were plenty of big fish out there too. A lot of wahoo, black fin tuna, sharks, sailfish, cobia, amberjacks and even marlin were caught this summer. It was a banner year for us here at Fishing Headquarters.
The action has been the best fishing the reef, about a mile offshore in depths of 120-180'. The big schools of small tuna, sardines and squid were in those depths these past few months. The water was hot this year and the current was moving pretty quickly considering it was summer, making the conditions ideal for the drift fishing boats to catch a lot on the reefs. Every day they were coming in with 20-30 bonitos, a nice bunch of kingfish, and a bunch of snappers. It was like fishing in a barrel out there.
The charter boats too were catching a lot with sportfishing tactics. Lots of kings were being caught trolling and live baiting. On the troll, a few nice wahoos were boated this summer as well as a few big black fins in the 30-40 pound range. When there was enough wind for the kite, the sailfish bit pretty well out there, even though the summer isn't the best time of year for catching sailfish. There were a couple trips when we caught 2-3 sailfish, and that was drift fishing.
The highlight of the summer was the excellent swordfishing. With the beautiful weather, all the swordfishing boats were going out there. This summer, our best catch was 5 swordfish in a single trip. We had 7 bites on swordfish in total; caught 5 of them and 4 of those were keepers. What a night! Biggest swordfish that night was a 140 pounder, although the biggest swordfish caught this summer for us was approximately a 260 pounder. It was a great summer of Fort Lauderdale swordfishing.
The coming months of September and October look promising. I noticed that a lot of the fish showed up late this year, 2-3 weeks later than they normally migrate through. However, being late, they stayed for later and longer than they normally do as well. In September the wahoo will begin to show up in better numbers and so will the black fin tuna. The swordfish bit better in September for us last year than any other month, so plan on some great swordfishing trips. October is the start of our sailfish season and is usually the beginning of the annual mullet run where the giant schools of mullet migrate down the beaches. November and Thanksgiving time should bring the cobia and even better wahoo fishing. Get ready for a great fall/autumn fishing season here in Fort Lauderdale.
