Sailfish and Swordfish Biting off Ft. Lauderdale

Fishing was a bit slow this week. We caught a few larger fish, but not a lot of action. The bigger fish we did catch were pretty cool though. A couple big sharks of various species, including two big hammerheads, a huge bull shark and several nice silky sharks.

The Friday night open boat swordfish trip this Friday had to brave some big seas this week. We were the only ones on the water Friday night, with winds upwards of 30 knots, and seas 6-9'. And it was about as cold as it gets here in Florida that night too. We still went out though, and caught a nice fish, 57" forklength swordfish, about an 80 pounder. The pictures I have show how windy it was. You can see in the photos the boat lisitng at a 30 degree angle and the captains hair blowing wildly in the wind. Lets just say its a good thing the captain doesn't wear a toupee. It took us 3 guys, and about an hour to land this fish. On the same night we caught a lancet fish. Not a big one, but if you've never seen one of these creatures, they look prehistoric. They have a huge eyeball, a sail, just like a sailfish has, and huge long skinny teeth like a mako shark. A crazy looking fish we rarely ever see. If I ever catch one, and I haven't yet, its definetly going on my wall. We had one other fish on that night, but missed him. It was a good trip despite the rough seas, gale force winds and the freezing cold. It was Florida's version of the Flemish Cap.

With this cold snap we had this week, we caught several big sailfish this week sportfishing. Yesterday when we were fishing we caught 2 out of 7 sails. We were draggin ballyhoo out of the riggers and saw a sail sticking out of the water, tailing downsea towards us. We were in his direct path so we didn't have to move hardly at all. As he got closer, I saw some other dark spots in the water near him and realized they were a couple of other sailfish swimming with him. Before I could yell out to the mate, my highline and 2 long riggers both popped out of the pins and came tight. We had a triple on, all within a second of eachother. It was pretty chaotic. A few minutes later, as we were fighting the other 2 fish, the 2 short baits popped out, and we almost had 5 on. Unfortunately, we never came tight on those 2. One of the fish we had on in ther triple bunch got cut off somehow, probably swam too close to one of the other fish. But we caught 2 of them so were were pretty happy. It was a scene out of Hemminway book out there yesterday. We saw 2 more fish that day, but again, missed them both. Got a few jumps out of them though.

Yesterday was a refresher from an otherwise pretty slow week. The sailfish are here late this year and are still biting good. Bottom fish are moving in to the deep shipwrecks and should be here till May or June. Dead bait reef trolling is still pretty dead out there, but live baiting has brought up some nice fish. I haven't spent any time offshore this week, but I hear a few dolphin and wahoo biting on the radio. We'll keep fishing, there's always something to catch. See ya on the water, until next week...

Capt. Andy Roydhouse
Fishing Headquarters
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