It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Sailfish love the winter months when the weather cools down. It gets them hungry and frisky. They also love the strong winds of the winter months, which make it conducive to fish the kite fishing technique. Kite fishing can be the most effective way to target sailfish in south Florida. And fishing the kites, you can also catch a slew of other species such as mahi-mahi, tuna, big game sharks, kingfish and more. Any of the surface feeders love eating the kite baits. With the baits strung up and held on the surface of the water, the baits have to struggle to keep their heads underwater to breath. They make all the robust fish-in-distress signals that draw in all the big game fish. While action can be a little slow when doing the kite fishing techniques, the patient fisherman will get some shots on some of the bigger fish that south Florida has to offer.
Swordfish is the other billfish that we catch on our Fort Lauderdale fishing charters. Swordfish are a deep water fish that we target way offshore of the coast. You have to run out about 15 miles offshore to get out to the territory where you can find them. During the daytime hours, swordfish go deep, so we drop down the bottom to get the baits in front of their noses. It’s deep too, we drop down over 1400ft. That deep is difficult to reach, so we have to use really heavy leads and drop fast into the current. Electric reels is the way to go for daytime swordfishing. We’re catching them steady using this method, usually at least a few bites per day. The difficulty is keeping them on the line. It’s tough to get a good hook set on a swordfish.
Sharks are the other big game fish that we catch on our deep sea fishing charters and they are biting with a vengeance this time of the year. The great thing about shark fishing, is that we don’t have to go super far offshore to find them. They are right there where the food is so they are in the same waters we catch everything else… grouper, snapper, cobia, tuna, kingfish, bonito, wahoo and barracuda. They are migratory so every day there is a new influx of fish… and predator fish. We get a great variety of big game sharks. Anything from bull sharks, nurse, sandbar and dusky to tiger, thresher, mako and hammerheads, we catch them all. These sharks all pretty much feed on the same prey, so when we hook into a big game shark, you don’t what kind of man eater you have on the line. It’s exciting and fun and they are some of the biggest fish in the ocean and we catch them right here on our Fort Lauderdale shark fishing charters. Shark fishing trips are some of my favorite trips to run as a captain in the winter months.
This is the season to go big in south Florida. Lots of big fish are biting and the action is good. It’s not a guaranteed bite to get a big game fish, but the odds are definitely in your favor. Good luck to everyone fishing with us this month. I’ll sea you on the water.
Capt. Rod Roydhouse
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