Key West Fly Fishing

Hello everyone.  Today was a break in the normal fishing routine.  Being the last wednesday in July, it marked the beginning of Sportsman mini-season; a recreational spiny lobster season.  For you non-Floridians, this is when seemingly half of South Florida visits the Keys in what is essentailly a wild west-style free for all.  Two days of diving, snorkeling, bad boating, bad ettiquete, and good eating.  With the immense boating pressure, flats fishing is out of the question.  If you can’t beat them, join them… right?  So Drew, myself and mutual friend Capt Shane Wood (a hard working and talented first year flats guide) set out at sunrise to see if we couldn’t catch a few “bugs” ourselves.  My one “spot”, which was unoccupied, provided us with our limit (6 lobsters per person) in 40 minutes. Safe and sound and back at the dock in less than two hours. 

I know, enough with the lobstering.  What about the fishing?  I just finished up a four day charter with Charles Smid from Moose, Wyoming.  He wanted to target only large tarpon (50+lb) and he had consistent success during his run of charters (he fished four days with Drew prior to our days together).  He jumped nine fish and caught nine more with at least as many missed eats.  His fish ranged from 100lb pigs to 30lb babies.  In our first two days of fishing, Charles and I started each morning in large basins throwing gurglers to tarpon actively feeding on juvenile triggerfish (I swear that this is not BS).  A.M. falling tides and slick mornings are the recipe for these July hatches.  You have not lived until you see a 100lb fish catapult out of the water to eat a tiny gurgler.  It is AWESOME.  Afternoons poling similar basins provided good fishing to large single laid-up fish and shots at schools of aggressive 30-50lb poons.  A shift in A.M. tides ended our hatch fishing and forced us to pole ocean swim lanes looking for the last of the migrants and the lonely locals.  There are never a lot of these fish around this time of year, but patience/perseverance pays as they are willing eaters.  20-30 shots in a day is a reasonable expectation, and that is what Charles and I experienced.  Our last afternoon, we encountered a small push of fish with the beginning of a flood tide at the Southwest corner of the Marquesas.  Two 50lb fish in an hour was a great way to end the trip.

Well, I’d better go.  Its time to spin up a few permit flies for this week’s moon tides and crack open a cold beer in anticipation for the meal of grilled lobster tails and deep fried lobster nuggets.

 ’Til next time,

Capt John

We have seen a change in the fishing since last reporting at the end of last month. The numbers of big tarpon have begun to dwindle, but the permit fishing has been getting steadily better. While there are still some large tarpon both swimming and laid up, the numbers that we were seeing even as recently as two weeks ago have declined. However, the baby tarpon fishing has helped fill in the slack created by the departure of their bigger brethern. Many of the edges that hold them in the summer are filling up and they can be found rolling and holding in the shadows of their mangrove lairs. Additionally, the permit fishing has been very good. The fish have been tailing, mudding and cruising and suprisingly relaxed given the calm weather we have experienced the past couple of weeks.

This past week I fished with Tomonori Higashi, Tomohide Kashiwagi both of Japan and Bernard Ramanauskas, cane fly rod builder extradonaire. They rotated and shared bow time throughout the week primarily chasing tarpon. Although the main target of some late season giants proved difficult, we managed to jump or catch fish from 120lbs down to 15lbs (most in the 20-50 range). I definitely enjoyed the week, but certainly had hoped for better numbers of big fish. Hopefully next year.

I did get the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to fish an afternoon with my Dad, Jim, and borther-in-law, Alex Neubauer. Despite getting on the water after five o’clock we managed to catch one tarpon about 130lbs, have two more eat (three shots total) and catch 3 bonefish. It was the first time I had looked for evening tailers and they were moving in waves across some of my favorite gulf side flats. Hopefully it is a sign of things to come this summer. The two photos are from that evening.

Capt Drew