South Florida has become one of the hottest spots in the world for recreational rod and reel swordfishing. On any given night a crew can head about 20 miles offshore and have a good chance of catching a fish from 50 to over 250 pounds. With the use of lights and mainly squid for baits, the swordfishing is one of the hottest big game fishing opportunities around.
If you check out Swordfishing Central you will notice, the trend from fishing night to during the day has picked up. While the night fishing still has many advantages such as: no sun to hide from, less boat traffic, cooler temperatures, etc., the day fishing has picked up its own set of advantages and possibly the main one of: bigger fish!
The daytime swordfishing definitely has a learning curve as the angler has the best chance of hooking a fish near the bottom. Getting your bait to the bottom with the strong Gulf Stream current is no easy task and reports of a lot of good tackle has been lost while learning this form of deep dropping. And to do this repeatedly until you get the bite can wear out even the strongest arms on the boat. This is why many anglers are fishing electric reels or power assisted reels. In some cases the angler can use the electric reel to lower and raise the line, and then when the fish strikes they can fight it traditionally and preserve the game.
Typically the fish we have seen are bigger than those caught at night. There are still many big fish caught at night, however we just don’t see as many lately.
In a recent tale, a well known crew headed out during the day. The first deep drop was made around 8am and about 15 minutes later the crew thought they hooked the bottom. After winding and the line coming up the crew caught a glimpse of the huge swordfish.
“I’m trying to hold back my emotions and I look up to Cliff and say nonchalant as he is acting and say Cliff we got a monster on here, it isn’t no pup, He still cool as a cucumber says well is it big as the one yesterday? (250 pounder) I look back over trying to hold my cool and YELL HELL NO; HE’S BIG AS YOUR FRIGGIN BOAT!!!!!!! Cliff is still laid back like no big deal; he looks over the side and almost PUKES!! Then the fish wakes up and the fight is on! He melts 600 yards off like a zebco ! tug of war for an hour and a half, Some of the most remarkable boat handling I have ever seen, We would be wide open in reverse hard left with waves busting over the transom, then wide open forward, At times I would have to grab the leader and run to the front of the boat to keep it off the bow as he would be wide open backing off! There is absolutely no question that if it weren’t for his ability behind the wheel that fish would have been gone 20 times, finally after what seemed like eternity I was able to get a dart in him, I ran for the bow and got another and stuck him again. Game over.”
The fish is estimated to be somewhere in the 600 pound range and one of the biggest swordfish reported in quite some time.
holy cow is there one bigger than that!how hard was it to catch that?