Ft. Lauderdale Drift Fishing – June 2021

Betty Bauman and Kaylee with a nice mutton caught aboard the Catch My Drift.
Betty Bauman and Kaylee with a nice mutton caught aboard the Catch My Drift.

Drift fishing is heating up this month as the first days of summer begin. Action on the kingfish will increase every day as we get deeper into June. This is the season for action on the reef. Kingfish, bonito, barracuda and blackfin tuna will all be biting. Drifting a weighted sardine or ballyhoo works excellent this time of year. Butterfly jigs and whip jigs also work great and can sometimes entice a bite from a bigger fish. Even this late in the season there are some smoker kingfish around. We’ve had a few kings over 25 pounds hit the dock over the last few weeks. The bigger kingfish will most likely slack off towards the end of the month and a multitude of new fish will arrive. The weather in South Florida is hot in the summer and so is the action.

The bottom fishing is also very good this month, especially at night. On our night anchor trips, we chum the water and target the variety of different snapper on the reef. On this trip, we are catching loads of yellowtail and mangrove snappers. Yellowtail snapper in particular are biting exceptionally well and are swarming up to the back of the boat in the chum line. Mangrove snapper hang pretty close to the bottom mostly and are also biting very well. Mutton snapper are the bigger snappers and we’re currently catching a handful of them on every trip. There are a couple days around the full moon in June when the muttons spawn and really snap. Last year during the June mutton spawn, we really crushed them, catching upwards of 50 muttons per night on the best nights.

The action is hot this month. Good luck to everyone fishing this month. Sea ya on the water.

Capt. Paul Roydhouse
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