The cold weather has brought with it a new batch of fish onto the reefs. Kingfish are biting strong on both the morning and afternoon drift trips. More kingfish seem to be biting in the mornings, but the biggest ones are usually caught on the afternoon trips. Several kingfish over 25 pounds were caught over the last few weeks. Whip jigging a white or pink pilchard jig baited with a whole ballyhoo seems to be working the best as of late. Along with kingfish, the blackfin tunas are biting strong. Winter is not traditionally the best season for blackfin tuna in Fort Lauderdale, but they are still biting regularly. Wahoo have been a welcome surprise on a few of our reef trips too. We’re catching a few big wahoo on drift and jig baits, usually when we drift out a little deeper in 150 feet or more.
Snappers are king of the reef in January. Mutton snappers are biting great on the day trips and even a few are being caught at night too. Yellowtail snapper are biting very good on the night anchor trips with some mangrove snapper mixed in. Some of our recent night trips have caught over 250 various snapper. January is always a great month for snapper fishing. Grouper fishing has been slow lately, but we have caught a few nice cobia to make up for it. Cobia are schooling fish, so whenever one is caught, look for other cobia that will follow a hooked cobia to the boat as it is being fought. It’s always good to keep a pitch bait ready, you never know when it’ll come in handy.
Good luck to all those fishing this month. I’ll sea ya on the water.
Capt. Paul Roydhouse
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