by Tom Greene of Custom Rod & Reel
I recently chatted with a friend of mine, Bouncer Smith, one of the most renowned fishermen in South Florida about the best times of the year to fish and he said “I love the November and December timeframe for fishing!”
The water starts to clear up from all the rains we’ve had, the temperature starts to drop, and the early morning and afternoon fishing is good. You can take your friends out and fish all the small boat tournaments—we probably have around 100 of those in this area coming up—and you can find fish without spending a lot of gas and bait money. You can get home from work around 5-5:30 and sneak out into the inlet and troll for an hour or so and catch kingfish, sailfish and dolphin every day. Another good thing is that you can talk to the folks who caught fish in the morning and run out to where they were fishing.
We’re at the end of snook season, the start of tarpon season, and we’re seeing the migration of swordfish all along our coast. We love to catch the big, fat, juicy pink swordfish at night — at the big party I throw every Christmas eve a lady came up to me and complimented me on “the best salmon I’ve ever had in my life” and I said “’sweetheart, that’s swordfish!” Pink swordfish is the best you’ll ever taste so look for it in the seafood case at your local market.
Also, the 40-70 foot reefs are abundant with yellowtail snapper, mangrove snapper, and mutton snapper and are being caught in a variety of ways. You can drift for them without even chumming, drop an anchor and chum, and you can catch them morning, noon, and night. Also, in about 300 feet of water along the edge of the gulf stream dolphin are biting—live bait or trolling.
There’s about 100 local fishing tournaments from now through February and you can check results at most tackle shops, etc so you can find out where the fish are biting, what they are biting and at what depths.
Tight lines and good fishin’!
Call or drop by Custom Rod and Reel in Lighthouse Point anytime and Tom and his excellent crew can take care of all your fishing needs, plus dish some great advice.
1835 NE 25th Street. 954-781-5600. Tom will probably answer the phone himself.
