It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Sailfish love the winter months when the weather cools down. It gets them hungry and frisky. They also love the strong winds of the winter months, which make it conducive to fish the kite fishing technique. Kite fishing can be the most effective way to target sailfish in south Florida. And fishing the kites, you can also catch a slew of other species such as mahi-mahi, tuna, big game sharks, kingfish and more. Any of the surface feeders love eating the kite baits. With the baits strung up and held on the surface of the water, the baits have to struggle to keep their heads underwater to breath. They make all the robust fish-in-distress signals that draw in all the big game fish. While action can be a little slow when doing the kite fishing techniques, the patient fisherman will get some shots on some of the bigger fish that south Florida has to offer.

Swordfish is the other billfish that we catch on our Fort Lauderdale fishing charters. Swordfish are a deep water fish that we target way offshore of the coast. You have to run out about 15 miles offshore to get out to the territory where you can find them. During the daytime hours, swordfish go deep, so we drop down the bottom to get the baits in front of their noses. It’s deep too, we drop down over 1400ft. That deep is difficult to reach, so we have to use really heavy leads and drop fast into the current. Electric reels is the way to go for daytime swordfishing. We’re catching them steady using this method, usually at least a few bites per day. The difficulty is keeping them on the line. It’s tough to get a good hook set on a swordfish.

Sharks are the other big game fish that we catch on our deep sea fishing charters and they are biting with a vengeance this time of the year. The great thing about shark fishing, is that we don’t have to go super far offshore to find them. They are right there where the food is so they are in the same waters we catch everything else… grouper, snapper, cobia, tuna, kingfish, bonito, wahoo and barracuda. They are migratory so every day there is a new influx of fish… and predator fish. We get a great variety of big game sharks. Anything from bull sharks, nurse, sandbar and dusky to tiger, thresher, mako and hammerheads, we catch them all. These sharks all pretty much feed on the same prey, so when we hook into a big game shark, you don’t what kind of man eater you have on the line. It’s exciting and fun and they are some of the biggest fish in the ocean and we catch them right here on our Fort Lauderdale shark fishing charters. Shark fishing trips are some of my favorite trips to run as a captain in the winter months.

This is the season to go big in south Florida. Lots of big fish are biting and the action is good. It’s not a guaranteed bite to get a big game fish, but the odds are definitely in your favor. Good luck to everyone fishing with us this month. I’ll sea you on the water.

Capt. Rod Roydhouse
www.NewLattitude.com
954-707-2147

Our inshore tarpon fishing trips are producing some impressive fish this week.  Several very large tarpon have been captured on our most recent tarpon fishing charters.  They are biting best during the tide change, in and around the Port, as well as the bridges and piling markers along the Interacoastal.  Tarpon, snook, jack crevale and a few sharks are all possible catches this month as December can be one of the best months of the year for inshore fishing.  With snook season closing this month, they will be strictly catch and release.  But as you can probably guess, the time of year when snooks are the biting the best, is when they are out of season!  

For tarpon, you can go daytime or night and both have their advantages and disadvantages.  But first and foremost, we need a moving tide.  Moving water is when they bite and gets them hungry.  I like to say, they’re on the treadmill, because they constantly have to swim against the current, just to stay in the same place.  This makes it a lot easier to target them and it makes them more aggressive, more instinctive, when a tasty bait tries to swim quickly past them.  GULP!

Tarpon are an elusive catch due to their hard, bony mouth, which makes it a challenge to get a good hook set into them.  Too often, when a tarpon takes the bait and feels that he’s being hooked, he will leap high into the air and violently shake his head from side to side, usually resulting in throwing the hook.  Tarpon have it down to an art form and it’s the main reason anglers want to go after these artful gamefish.  With our network of inshore canals and Intracoastal waterway, Fort Lauderdale is one of the most unique destinations to go after tarpon.   

If you’re interested in coming out on an inshore fishing charter with us, please call me at 954-707-2147.  We still have plenty of fishing charter dates available this month, and we’re itching to go fishing!  Sea ya out there.

Capt. Rod Roydhouse 
New Lattitude Sportfishing
954-707-2147

Awesome Wahoo Fishing in Fort Lauderdale

What a great week on big wahoo we are having fishing in Fort Lauderale this week.  Big wahoos, 30-40 pounders are biting really good anywhere from 100-600ft of water.  Today, Capt Adam went trolling out in 400 ft of water looking for wahoo.  They hooked into a double header wahoo, both of which took a crazy run right off the bat and almost stripped the reel.  We had to back the boat down to make sure we didn’t run out of line.  The wahoo took such a fast run of line off the reel right off the bat that both reels actually smoked.  When both fish stopped their initial run, it wasn’t too hard to fight them in.  We gaffed the first wahoo, which was a 40 pounder easy.  The second wahoo pulled the hooks right behind the boat.  It was equally as large as the first one.

We’ve also done good on the reefs trolling for wahoos.  Capt Kevin caught 4 out of 5 wahoos trolling the reef yesterday, along with some sushi-sized blackfin tunas and kingfish.  The reef wahoos aren’t as big as the offshore wahoo are this time of year.  Some bigger mahi-mahi dolphin are being reported offshore as well.  On the reef, sailfish continue to be active.  January and February are 2 of the best months for sailfishing in Fort Lauderdale of the whole year.  We are finally getting some slightly cooler weather down here which is getting the sailfish active.  Shark season is just around the corner with some mako sharks, hammerhead sharks and thresher sharks just starting to show up.  Get ready for the best big game shark fishing season of the year to begin next month.  Good luck fishing out there this week everyone.  Tight lines and good fishing!

Capt. Rod Roydhouse

Fort Lauderdale fishing charters

954-707-2147

Sharks are here and they are biting with a vengence.  Hammerheads are leading the shark train, big female hammerheads in the 6-10 ft range.  We’ve caught a couple hammerheads this week over 300 pounds.  Shark fishing season is just beginning and it’s starting off splendidly.  Some dusky sharks, black tips and sand bar sharks are also coming through our waters… we’re catching a few of them too.  There have already been a few exotic sharks such as mako and thresh sharks seen this week, which is a good sign that the shark concentration in Ft Lauderdale is increasing.  For the next few months, big game shark fishing will be a daily thing in Ft Lauderdale.

Decent action on the wrecks this week too.  Some big cobia schools are showing up on some of the better wrecks that we fish.  Also some of the deep water groupers are biting.  Jack fish are moving onto these artificial reefs and wrecks too and they will soon dominate the wrecks with their numbers.  We’re getting into Ft Lauderdale’s best fishing season and big game fish are starting to snap.  Good Luck fishing this month everyone.

Capt Adam was on the wheel and he immediately threw the boat in full forward and yelled at the angler to reel on it hard and fast, trying to get the slack out of the line as quickly as possible. As soon as we came back tight on the fish, he dove deep. We knew it was a mako we were hooked up to and we were excited. This was the first mako we’ve caught in over a year at least, and we’ve only seen 1 or 2 caught among the entire fleet this shark fishing season. Mako’s are a cold water shark, mainly inhabiting the Northeast Atlantic. They are actually quite common to catch in New England, but for us in South Florida they are rare.

After an hour long fight we got the fish to within 50 ft of the surface. Makos are one of the only sharks that jump high out of the water, one of their exciting attributes. On the bite, this fish jumped at least 10 feet in the air, but he never jumped again the entire fight. We were excited about catching this mako, so we were ready when the fish came up. Adam came down from the flybridge and grabbed the harpoon. He stood up on the covering board, took aim for brief second and threw. Perfect shot right through upper right shoulder. You can see the cord from the dart still sticking out of the fish.

We were on a shark fishing charter, so we kept fish. Another half hour of fishing and we had on our second big shark of the day, this time a hammerhead. The hammerhead was also a big shark, an 8 and a half footer. We caught him in just 45 mins and estimated him at 200 pounds. In addition to the 2 sharks, we also caught a half dozen tile fish and a few bonitos that we traded up for much bigger game. A great Fort Lauderdale shark fishing charter! It’s a great time of year for fishing, so if you want to catch some big game fish, now is the time to go fishing. Tight Lines,

Capt. Rod Roydhouse

New Lattitude Sportfishing

954-707-2147

Shark fishing charters are extremely popular for us this time of year.  They are the biggest and strongest fish in the ocean, with no natural predators.  We specialize in shark fishing charters so we really excel this time of the year.  Most of the sharks that we target concentrate in 300-400ft of water, conveniently just a mile off our coast.  This is the edge of the Gulfstream where the cooler inshore waters meet the warmer waters of the Gulfstream current.  The sharks swim right along that temperature gradient which is usually where the highest concentration of available food is.  This is great for us because at the same as we are shark fishing, we can fish a few baits for sailfish, mahi-mahi and tuna which all inhabit the same territory.

This is the season for big game fishing in Fort Lauderdale, and that’s what we specialize in at New Lattitude Sportfishing.  Sharks, sailfish, marlin and swordfish are the main gamefish we go after, or anything else that is Big!  If you want to catch the biggest fish of your life, come out fishing between now and the end of June.  This is our season for giants, so give us a call and book a charter!  We look forward to fishing with you.  Sea you on the water.

Capt. Rod Roydhouse

Fort Lauderdale Shark Fishing Charters

(954)707-2147