The grouper season started up this week on May 1 and there are some good catches of groupers already hitting the dock in Fort Lauderdale.  Reds, blacks and gag groupers are biting on the reefs and wrecks, just a mile off our coast.  We’re catching them mostly on our drift fishing trips and night anchor fishing trips, both trips which concentrate on bottom fishing.  Squid chunks work well, as do sardines and ballyhoo.  May and June are traditionally 2 of the best months for grouper action.  And while grouper fishing, you’re also in prime area for mangrove and mutton snappers.  Our night anchor trips have been crushing the snappers this week.  Yellowtail snapper are biting excellent and there’s good numbers of mangroves and muttons too.

On our sportfishing charters, we’re actually catching groupers well on the troll.  Wreck fishing is traditionally the best method to catch groupers, but trolling is working well these days as you can cover a lot of ground on the troll.  And trolling the reef also gives you a good shot at catching kingfish, bonitos, blackfin tuna and mahi-mahi, all of which are biting now.  And let’s not forget our biggest gamefish out there to be caught… sharks.  This is our best time of the year for catching big game sharks.  Several sharks over 200 pound were caught this week.  If you want to go out there and try to catch a fish bigger than you are, shark fishing is for you.  This is perhaps the best month of the year to fish Fort Lauderdale as just about everything is biting.  This great fishing should continue through May and June, when a new batch of summer fish start showing up.  Good luck out there fishing this week.  I’ll sea ya on the water.