by Capt. Dale Smith
King fish, which have all but disappeared for us this year, started coming back last month. January is usually a good time to catch some of these bigger kings, and it looks like we’ll finally start getting in our big king fish catches again. On our drift fishing trips king fish are our main target, so it’s been a difficult couple of months. We’ve concentrated on snapper and grouper fishing to make up for the lousy king fish bite. Well, over the past couple of weeks, we’re seeing more and more king fish hit the docks, a great sign. The best bait for king fish is to use either a whole ballyhoo, cigar minnow or sardine. A 2 or 3 hook rig is best, with the hooks together in tandem. The double or triple hooks act as a steel leader and keeps the king fishes’ razor sharp teeth from cutting through the mono lament. Jigging is also a great method to drift for kings. I like the butter y jigs a lot or a red/white pilchard jig with a ballyhoo behind it. Jig your bait fast and hard, all the way up from the bottom. The harder you jig, the more aggressive of a bite you will get. Black fin tunas, cobia, barracuda and bonitos are also in the same areas you’ll be drift ing in and are being caught frequently on the drift boats. You never know what you’ll catch drift ing the Fort Lauderdale reefs.
Night anchor fishing for snappers is where we’ve really been shining lately. At night, snappers come out of the woodwork to feed. We’re catching a lot of really big mangrove snappers at night. Yellowtails are biting well too. We catch mostly smaller yellowtails in the winter months. Mutton snappers are the biggest snappers we catch and we always get a few of them every night. On a good night trip, we can catch over 50 snappers, as well as all the other bottom fish we catch on the reef. In addition to snappers, we catch a lot of grunts, porgies, triggers, squirrel fish, toros, chubs, eels and even octopus! A few groupers are biting as well, but they are now officially out of season and have to be released. Cobia are another big bottom fish we catch quite oft en this month. Sometimes they school up and we get a few at a time. Cobia are big, 20- 40 pounds and are great eating fish. On our night anchor trips, we chum the waters heavily, to draw in all the reef fish to around our boat. We drop down to the bottom with chunk bait and you can catch just about anything. Squid is the best bait for just about any fish out there. Drop down a chunk of squid and you will catch fish. Night anchor fishing is the best trip to catch lots of fish on the dri ftboats. Come on out on a night trip and check it out. Sea ya’ on the water.
Capt. Dale Smith
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