"Catching", not fishing. Ft. Lauderdale report

[hannaman]

We don't call it the tropics for nothing. Almost everyday it has been raining in buckets, but like all rain in the tropics, it's short lived. When your on the water you can see the rain coming and most of the time you can run from it. A good rain jacket makes it tolerable and even makes the experience on the water enjoyable.

The bite has been on and off as usual but even more so with the rising and dropping of the barametric pressure. When the pressure has dropped below normal, basically when a rain cloud is parked on top of you and pouring, the bite will be off. But as the pressure builds, when the sun starts to show it's heat, the fish will bite again if they are around.

This past week we had some notable catches. Our best catch was a Blackfin Tuna pushing a boastful 35 pounds. We also caught some nice dolphin on a day when the east wind was blowing around 15 knots and the sea was full of Sargassum weed.

Some big Barracuda's are showing up. They can be unpredictable, jumping like a Sailfish in every direction. The Kingfish are always here averaging 10-15 pounds with the occasional smoker being caught. These fish can be finicky in the summer months. When the currrent is dead slow, floating live baits won't work. You have to move them around yourself by slow trolling them. Sometimes the fish are just plain lazy in between tides and don't even want to chase their baits, thats when they might take a dead bait. The other day we were having such a hard time getting bites. The head boats were getting more bites than us, so I tried using dead Pilchards. I actually tried trolling dead Pilchards and started getting more bites than I had all day.

The Swordfish scene is changing for the better. More fish are starting to show up but so are the Sharks. This is the time when I like to be out as many nights as possible because the big fish will be coming through, you just don't know exactly when. Fresh Squid and good strong Blue Runners will be the key. You never know what is going to come through your spread out there in the Gulf Stream so have your reels prepared with fresh line and plenty of drag power if you need it. I like to have at least 50 pounds of drag in the full position on my Tiagra 80 Wides. I remember earlier this year we had our 200 line get hit at full speed. We pushed the drag up to the strike position and didn't get any reaction. The spool of line was almost gone and the only thing we could do was push her up to the full strike position. We finally got the reaction we were looking for as we finally stopped her. For the next 40 minutes we slowly cranked this beast to the surface only to see the wrong color, it was a Hammerhead Shark easily going over 500 pounds. But even so, what if it was a 500 pound Swordfish? They would fight even harder, and if you don't have that drag power your going to miss that fish of a lifetime.

On August 12 there is the annual "Swordlords" Tournament. We are still available for charter on this tourny, don't miss out on this exciting occasion.

See you on the rip,
Captain Cary Hanna

[FinalPoint]

Nice report, Cary.
Those huge cudas can be fun. I onced hooked one, fought it for 30 minutes thinking it was a sail after only seeing one huge jump, then found out what it was. Sometimes they behave differently and swim to the boat...all depends.
Mike and I were talking the other day about how this time of year last year saw a few big boys come to the scales. Don't wanna be undergunned. Expect to see some biiiig makos and swords.