well, my working buddy finally got his boat, nice 22' zodiac eclipse built on a hurricane hull with 2 yamaha 4 strokes 115hp customized for fishing with gps, fishfinder and everything needed, we're thinking about having our first trip this saturday or sunday out of port everglades, our idea is to get some live bait at first light, then trolling for a while and finally find some spots for drifting/jigging/bottom fishing. Any basic tip or areas where to start fishing would be really appreciated, no honey holes obviously, just some general infos on where to go in the open sea, you can even pm me if you don't want to share too much

Run S of the inlet - fish in the 80-120 drop off....look for the Bait / Live Bottom to show on the fishfinder Drop to em !

Run a quick Google search of wrecks in the area...Hopefully the GPS has data input capability.
Should do well on AJ's on deeper wrecks ( over 150' ) right now.

Stormrunner is the guy to ask !

oh man we loss another one to a boat

see if this helps i have this for diving but there wrecks and reefs and im sure they hold fatties.

http://www.divespots.com/scuba/site-ft- ... spots.info

good luck out there

Go to the tie up bouys S. of the port before sun up and put out the chum bags. You should have plenty of pilchards in the slick after 20 or 30 minutes. I used to go to the second or third tie up bouy down there. You might also pick up a few gogs there as well. GL. And i hope you will be doing lots of .

If you launch before sunlight, take some gog bugs or size 8 sabiki's and slow troll them on the north side of the port. You should pick up some gogs and small blue runners too. You black-out the well if you are presistant and patient.

Ricky, PM sent, you can thank me later with a trip on the boat.

S of inlet 55-65ft on the ledge produced WELL last night

thanks a lot for all the infos, we'll see and follow our feelings as we're out, today I got plenty of fresh sardines in juno, want to make a slick of small sardine chunks close to the weed line to attract some dolphin or blackfin, hope they can be useful

Marcus, I'm not lost to the boat even if at times is great fun, and mostly after today we had a blast with the bonies and snooks at juno pier, we missed you and brad

we left at 6 from the dock on old griffin, stopped for gas and we were out of the inlet at 6:45, 3 miles out we found a nice weed line and started slow trolling close to it, we got 3 bonies and a huge houndie in 1 hour, we then drifted right in front of dania pier from 200 feet to the 1st reef, all we got was some big runners in the 4-5# range and another bonie, we got cutoff twice by kings who were not biting on the wire for some reasons, we then moved back to the weed lines looking for phins, but no trace of them. A huge storm was approaching from SE and formed a big waterspout right in front of us, we then moved to commercial pier and drifted there from 300 ft, but current was ripping north and we ended up very close to pompano pier, bottom fishing produced only some big grunts in the 2-3# range, anyway was not that bad for our first trip, we were mostly practicing with the boat and we had lot of fun since most of the fishes were caught on light spinners, we were back at the dock at 3pm.

Some pics

our setups


hollywood and miami coast from offshore


waterspout

Here is my idea of a good boating trip this time of year......a handful of white jigs in 1/4 , 1/2, and 5/8 oz , trailer hooks , 50 lb mono leader and a box of sardines. Set up a drift in 80 - 140 ft til you find out the drift and where the fish are biting. Last year we limited out on kingfish every trip plus bonitas, and a 28 lb dolphin all within a 10 minute run of the inlet. We use 12 and 15 lb spinners so the fish are blast . Then Hit the edge of the inlet with light leader rigs just enough lead to stay on bottom and some 25 ln mono leader with some kingfish or bonita belly and work between 65 and 110 ft . try the north and south side til you find the ytail school. When you find them a limit is not hard at all.Plus some nice muttons in there as well. We normally leave out at 630 am and are back at the ramp by noon with some nice fish.

thanks for the good tips chris, next time we'll be a little more confident with the area and I hope it's gonna get better, we had pretty much fun anyway, that boat works the waves in a really smooth way, we were around 30 knots of speed on 2-3 foot waves and the ride was pretty comfortable, no bumps at all, those military hurricane hulls work great

Just look for the partyboats out there . They will usually be on the kingfish schools this time of year. I just like that style of fishing as it gets me off the water quickly with some nice fish without running 20 miles out looking for dolphin.

d'you mean bare jigs (i.e. trollrites) or kind of bucktails? d'you tip them with bait chunks/strips or just let them float in the current and give some action (like when fishing for macks)?

With white bucktail/hair add 2 trailer hooks pin on a sardine and jig it or dead stick it and drift til you find the fish. Basic partyboat kingfish rig.

got ya, a skirt through the leader just before the 3 trailer hooks would work the same way, wouldn't it? that's the way we were drifting dead dines and hoos the other day and that's the way I've seen them doin'it on the FFF too, I'll try the white bucktails too next time anyway

a skirt would do the same but the jig adds weight to get it down, what we tell people is let it hit the bottom and close the reel. When your drifting the current will move the jig further in the water column.

is that the narrow 4/0? hope your friend likes it.

he's just lovin' it, he tested that day on a couple of good size bonies and responded great

Hey, guys. Sorry for the zombie post, but I stumbled across this and I have a related question.

I've done almost all of my fishing boatless and the little experience I have afloat has been limited to party/charter boats. I'm about to go out with some people who just got a boat but have no fishing experience. I'm going to try fishnfools approach. I just finished rigging up a couple jigs with the 3 hook setup.

What would be the best way to tie these on. I know on the party boats, the 3-hook rigs are tied directly to the main line, but I imagine I should use a leader of some sort. I imagine the 3 hooks are supposed to prevent cutoffs, do I need wire?

I play it by ear or rather eye on leader. If the water is clear I use 30 lb mono up to 60 b depending. Sometimes the 30 lb mono gets hit when nothing else does. If the fish are in a frenzy I'll use 80 lb mono. I tend to avoid wire as it only generally works for 1 hit or fish and then you have to retie. I will sacrifice the occasional jig to a cutoff for action.

Thanks. About how long should the leader be? And do I tie line to line?

wow, that sounds like a million years ago!!!!

And look at you now...Capt of your own boat

Hey Guys

Well I'm still a devout boatless dude, but, I have joined a boat club and my membership offers me some great boat access. So, I took a 23 ft center console out today and felt a little, let's say - LOST. We still had a great time but I just haven't the slightest clue where to start or where to go. I went out of Port Everglades and headed a bit north, tried various depths doing lots of bottom fishing with squid, various cut baits. Didn't have live bait this time. Sure, got lots of nice sized grunts, my two travel companions (in this case mom and wife!) got a couple of huge triggerfish, my wife's was a true monster, I've never seen a triggerfish that big, ever. But, except for the occasional small to medium grouper and under slot yellow tail's, it was a trigger fish fest. I have read so much about bottom fishing along the ledges and finding the wrecks, but man, being out there one truly feels lost. How the heck am I going to find the wrecks? I'd have been happy catching just one nice sized Mutton, but like I said, I didn't have the slightest clue which way to go and this is after reading every blog I could find on locations. I assume the chart locations of these places are to be input into a GPS and that's the way to find'em? Anyways, any help here is greatly appreciated, and maybe one day we can hook up for a trip, I'll do the boat, we discuss the gas. Be a nice way to meet some of you all! Cheers
B...