Sailfish everywhere off the coast of Ft Lauderdale

Friday, January 22. 2010

Today we had Frank and his son Zach from Wilton Manners in South Florida and Jeff and his son Joshua from St Petersburg Florida Dave from Houston Texas and also Dave from New Jersey.

The whole idea of this fishing trip was for the 3 doctors to relax and to catch the kids some fish but we had no idea what a great trip it would turn out to be.

We started out by stopping by the live bait boat and picking up a dozen live goggle eyes than we went right to kite fishing. We set out both kites with 4 of our live baits suspended from the kites.

Ok now the baits were all set out there and the trap was set.

After about 10 min of waiting we seen a sailfish jumping

(we call it a flopper) just north of our long kite baits and he was heading south so we let the kites out just a little further hopping to get one of our baits right in front of him.

But what we didn’t notice was that while we were trying to get our baits out further Captain Greg seen another sailfish chasing our short right kite bait and before we knew what was going on Greg was feeding this sailfish a nice hearty goggle eye. Just like that BAM we were Hooked Up

11 year old Zach jumped at the chance to fight his first sailfish. He jumped in the chair and the fight was on. It was a great back and forth tug a war for over 15 min till Finally Zach got this nice 85 to 89 inch sailfish to the side of the boat.

We got a couple of good pictures of Zach’s first sailfish and watched him swim away in great shape. Nice going Zach.

While Zach was fighting his sail we also managed to keep all the other kite baits out there hopping to get in front of the flopper we had seen in the first place. While we never did get in front of the first sail we had seen we did manage to catch Zach’s fish and it only took about 5 seconds to get the forth bait back in the spread. And once again the trap was set.

This time we waited a good 30 min and then all of a sudden BAM here comes another sailfish all over our short left kite bait. It took this sail no time at all to catch his meal and the fight was on with 7 year old Joshua in the chair.

I’m not sure what was lit up more the sailfish or this 7 year old kid that was all over the sail fish fight. While Joshua was about 55 to 58 inches long this sail was at least 87 inches long and what a ball it was just to watch these two battle it out. At the end of this 32 min fight Joshua ended up being the victor. (Way To Go Joshua)

What a great day it seemed we could do no wrong today but wait once we got the baits back out there Greg yelled out that he thought he seen anther fish way out there by the left long kite bait. Once I got a look at what I thought was a shark Greg locked up the reel and came tight with the so called shark I thought I seen out there but much to my surprise out came this sailfish dancing all over the surface of the water and we were Hooked Up again with another sailfish.

This time Dave jumped in the chair and the fight was on. It was a 15 min back and forth tug a war but Dave got his fish to the boat and after a couple of quick pictures next to the boat we watched him swim away in good shape.

With only a few min left in the trip we got a bite on our right long bait only this time no one seen the bite but we figured with all the sails we were catching this just has to be another sail.

I think it was Frank that jumped in the chair but all the same whoever it was this fish never came up jumping and was coming in a bit too easy. As it turned out it was a skip jack tuna.

I’ve got to say what a fun day of fishing with pretty much none stop action and to top it off none of the other boats were seeing any sails so like they say every dog has his day and I guess today was ours.