Sailfish season is here and it’s starting off with a bang! The sailfish this season are biting voraciously. Already we’re catching numbers that we usually don’t see until the middle of winter. Kite fishing on the blue/green color change, just a mile offshore, is all but a sure thing for sailfish. This is a great time of year for big game action, with just about every trip catching one or more sailfish 6-8 ft in length. Sailfish are the most sought after gamefish in the ocean, and people come from all around the world to take place in the great sailfishing that we have off the Fort Lauderdale coast.
These sailfish migrate in a stretch of water, between 100-250 ft deep, that we call sailfish alley. Pop the kites in this zone with some lively goggle eyes and get ready for action. Kite fishing is a method of live baiting by suspending your baits from kites, keeping them suspended directly on the top of the water struggling, making fish in distress vibrations. It’s a very effective way to catch sailfish and other top water gamefish. When you are kite fishing, you can also catch tuna, dolphin, kingfish and big game sharks. All of these species are biting this month and can be caught out there.
Wreck fishing, a technique of fishing where we drop live or dead baits to the bottom next to a shipwreck, also makes for good action this time of year. Warsaw grouper, one of the biggest groupers we catch in Ft Lauderdale, are stacking up and making home around shipwrecks and bottom structures. Warsaw groupers average upwards of 50 pounds, much larger than most groupers average. Black grouper, amberjack and cobia are other bottom fish that you may catch wreck fishing in October. Just a little further offshore, shark fishing can be good this month for some of the most exotic sharks we catch out here, thresher and mako sharks. Last year, we caught 2 of our biggest thresher sharks I have ever seen in October. There’s a great variety of fish to be caught this month, some of our biggest fish all year.
I love sailfish season! Tight lines and good fishing.
Capt. Adam Reckert
New Lattitude Sportfishing
(954) 707-2147
www.newlattitude.com