April is one exciting month for us here in Fort Lauderdale. Our drift fishing boat, the Catch My Drift is pulling in a lot of big kingfish on the morning and afternoon fishing trips. Kingfish were a little slow for us this winter, but have made a strong comeback. They are biting in 100 to 200 feet of water, just outside the reef. Mixed in with the kingfish are some blackfin tuna and a few bonito. There is a lot of bait around right now that is concentrated on the reef, making the fishing hot. This time of year in the early mornings, I like to fish with lighter lead up near the surface. As the day progresses, kingfish tend to go deeper. By late afternoon, I actually prefer fishing for kingfish on the bottom, where you may also catch mutton snapper and grouper. When fishing, it’s important to adapt to the changing conditions of the day, and when something isn’t working, try something different.
The night fishing trips on our drift boat are coming up with yellowtail, mangrove and a few larger mutton snappers. Snappers are not very big fish, with most being only 1 to 3 pounds, but they school up, are great eating and fun to catch. You can’t go wrong fishing chunks of squid on the bottom for snapper. Squid is the ice cream of the sea as every fish loves to eat squid. When fishing squid on the bottom, you’re bound to start getting small fish pecking at your bait right away. Leave it there and don’t try to set the hook every time you get a small nibble. Snappers are cautious fish. They wait and let smaller fish go in first. Eventually a mangrove or mutton is going to get its confidence up, swim over and steal the bait whole from the mess of grunts and other little bottom critters pecking at it. When you feel a bite that has some weight behind it, I call it a ‘bite with some authority’, that’s when you want to set the hook. Night fishing continues to be the best trip for the most action.
Good luck to everyone fishing this month. I’ll sea ya on the water.
Capt. Paul Roydhouse
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