Key West Fly Fishing

They are here.  Actually they have been for two moon cycles now.  They are of the course the Atlantic Palolo worm (Eunice scemacephala).  One of the great spectacles of the year is when the palolo worms’ sexual “vehicles” (epitoke) detach from the rest of its body and races to the surface.  With the right combination of tide and time of day, large hatches of these can occur.  Tarpon, in vast numbers, wait with gaping maws for these little delicacies.  Fisherman, in equally large numbers, wait with fly rods and little red flies. 

This past week, a decent hatch came off at the “Bridge”.  Fishing during the actual hatch is something we rarely do, but Jacob, Drew and I all struck out for a couple of evenings of work and fun.  Anchoring up with the fleets and letting your fly dangle until it is eaten is barely fly fishing in my book but it’s interesting every now and again.  Enough fish were jumped to make it worth the effort. 

For some real fun, we like to fish near worming areas with a worm fly during non-hatch situations.   Some days this can produce spectacular bites from normally disinterested swimmers. That is exactly what I did the last couple of years and expected to be doing again this year.  Instead, I am 60 miles away in the Marquesas fishing mellow schools that eat anything (so long as its white).  My worm flies might make it till next year if the fishing holds up.

later

john

We are currently being battered by some strong winds in the lower keys. After some nice weather, the breeze, really the wind, picked up last Thursday during the day. It hasn’t really stopped for the past three and a half days either. It has blown between 20 and 30 knots causing a lot of tarpon to move off the flats and take shelter somewhere that we really can’t sight fish. Luckily, if you put in the effort there are some fish to be found. The old adage, “If you pole long enough the fish find you” is definitely very much a truism in these kind of conditions. Perseverance and constantly being ready are the keys to having any measure of success when the fishing is tough.

Before this weather moved in I had some good days fishing with Dan Schaeffer of Bozeman, Montana. We alternated between backcountry edges and the oceanside having success on both sides of the highway. In fact, last wednesday was one of those incredibly beautiful days - cloudless for the most part, low humidity, temps in the low 80’s and a light breeze. That day we found huge schools and strings moving along the ocean as well as the smaller pods and strings that we had encountered earlier this month. It was one of those memorable days with a lot of shots and some cooperative fish.

Jacob spent the past week with Howard Davis of Montana. They had some great days on the water really getting into some fish on Thursday. Jacob got most of the action captured on the video camera and quickly edited the piece and uploaded it to YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3iZTYRsmVs

Hopefully the wind begins to settle a bit this week. The forecast doesn’t look too promising but the National Weather Service doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to predictions, so we are taking hope in that. Maybe, just maybe, the weather gods will smile upon the keys and the winds will back off and the tarpon fishing will return to the madness that we have grown to expect this time of the year. Just in case, I’ll cross my fingers and do a little dance - I mean it can’t hurt right?

Drew

Good Lord it has been a long time since we put up a fishing report. It is amazing how life and fishing can put other things on the back burner. The past several weeks for me has been, well, life-changing, and in a very positive way. I got married on April 4th to my college love, Allison, and forced Jacob, John and a couple of other guides to interrupt their spring schedules to attend my wedding in Tennessee. Luckily, the event went off without a hitch and I think people may have actually enjoyed themselves a little bit. Needless to say the break was short-lived and everyone was back on the water chasing some fish.

So far April has given us some pretty decent weather. We had a cold front push through a little over a week ago, bringing some winds and cooler weather for a couple of days. Gladly the warm weather returned quickly and the fishing has picked right back up where it left off. With the departure of the permit to deeper water to spawn, (not too heart-broken about that) I have focused solely upon my other true love - tarpon.

The tarpon fishing the past week has been good. Its been good, but not great. While the numbers of fish haven’t been low, the reluctance of them to eat at times has been a tad frustrating. This isn’t to say that we haven’t had some great days on the water. I have fished with Charles Smid of Moose, WY for the past week. In six days of fishing, we have had over thirty tarpon eat the fly getting a good number of those fish in the air. The fish have been both laid up and moving and everything from singles to groups numbering over 20 fish. We have been getting anywhere between 20 and 50+ shots a day, plenty to keep us busy and finding fish on just about every edge that I have fished. And the fish have been big for the most part. The majority of fish that he have fed and jumped have exceeded 100lbs. I can’t say that we’ve tangled with any truly monstrous girls, but I’ll gladly take fish that average around triple digits.

It seems that we have had a number of fish eagerly taking the fly from below with enough voracity to cause their heads to come out of the water. When a tarpon does this it can take all of an angler’s discipline to avoid the dreaded “trout-set”. The key is to just continue your strip as if the fish had never eaten the fly and patiently wait to feel the weight of the fish on the line - “feeling for the wall.” This allows the fish to settle back in the water and if the fly pops out, it is still right in the zone for either that fish or another one in the group to eat your offering.

The wind blew like stink at times today, but the fish were still around. Hopefully the wind backs off over the weekend and the beautiful weather we’ve had for the past week holds. I have my fingers crossed that we have seen the last of cold fronts in the Keys at least until sometime in the fall. I also hope that we can be more consistent in getting up reports, hell when its tarpon fishing its a lot of fun to write about the experience.

Drew

I know, I know it has been a while since you last heard from us.  I happen to have a very good excuse.  My wife and I welcomed a new baby to the family in April.  Finn, while being a perfect angel, still occupies all of our free time.  As far as the others’ excuses, well I’m just going to chalk it up to sloth.

Now, after a nice and relaxing family vacation (is that an oxymoron?), I am once again at full strength.  So lets get on with the fishing stories.   This morning I managed to sneak out with my old friend Barry Pietraszek for a few hours of tarpon fishing.  This time of year, this is almost a sure thing.  Put together light winds, early mornings, decent current and you can almost guarentee a “shrimp hatch”.  Sometimes you have to run around to find the flocks of birds that indicate the presence of the bait, but that was not the case this morning. 

While idling into our first spot, we were greeted by fish sipping shrimp off the surface.  Actually, sipping is not the correct word.  Let’s go with exploding.  Now, I have seen thicker hatches, but this one was pretty good.  We had fish in the 70-90lb range a few hundred yards off the tree line, and schools of 10-30lb fish closer to the trees.  Once Barry found his stroke, the fishing was easy.  It always is in these situations.  Every cast in the ballpark got eaten. 

My fly of choice for this fishing is Gartside gurlger.  Color doesn’t matter, size doesn’t matter, all that matters is the little wake or pop that the fly makes.  Sure almost any fly will work in a hatch, but the fish seem to hunt the gurlger donwn a bit better, and the eats are fantastic.  I just love to watch the fish catapult out of the water to eat the fly.  Even when you know the cast is right, the eat comes as a surprise. And what a surprise it is.

The one glaring drawback to this fun is that it is very easy to miss the take.  The fly just has a way of sliding out of harm’s way.  Today was no exception.  Still, when the fishing is this easy, everythings works itself out.  Barry managed to catch two (around 20lbs), jump three more, and miss 5 or so more bites.  Not bad for a couple of hours work.  Hell we left them rolling.

 Well that was this morning.  Overall the fishing has been pretty good.  There has been a solid push of post-spawn tarpon in the 70-120lb range as well as the usual local babies.  The larger fish require a bit of looking to find, but the edge that hold them now, generally will hold them thru the first cold fronts of the fall.  The bonefishing in the Lower keys has been a little spotty, nothing like this time last year.  However, whenever I have got off my ass and trailered to Islamorada it has been world class.  Big fish schooled up in the park and smaller pods on the ocean.  I have done very little permit fishing in the last few months, so I am definately not the man to ask on that front.  In other words I am my typical summer fishing pattern. Tarpon fishing and bonefishing with an occasional day spent permit fishing.

I promise it won’t be long till the next report.

Over and out,

john

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7tAkf-pCvw

The last 6 days on the water have been about all you can ask for as a fishing guide. Seeing a tarpon open that big ass mouth and eat a fly never gets old to me. Sometimes I think it gets better every time I see it. Not once in the last 20 grabs (or 1000 grabs) could I say I’ve felt the least bit unimpressed, mellow, or even under control. In fact, it’s the opposite. Sometimes I get too excited. I think my clients would be better off if I could contain myself but every time I see a tarpon eat a fly I pretty much freak out….at times I hide it better than others, at times I loose my shit. The latter is far more common. And when they jump, what is it about seeing that huge sea creature launch itself into the air that drives us mad.

Early in the morning when we hook one right off the bat I find myself a touch more classy and dignified about the transaction. I still love it and think it’s the coolest thing in the world, but the times I really go nuts is when I’ve been pushing the boat into the wind for 9 hours, my dude has been trying as hard as he can all day, and finally the planets line up. The boat’s stopped, the cast is right, and the 120 pounder opens his mouth up and annihilates the fly. It’s like scoring a goal in the 91st min of the soccer game. And yes, this is normally when I become unglued. Laughter, perma-grin, angling nirvana. If I’ve managed to keep my cool past the eat the first jump gets me every time.

Well, John and I both have the day off and I’m meeting him at the ramp in 30min to put one in the air myself. Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74EQEuYuTFw

Jacob

I finally got my MOJO back.  Thank God it has been awhile.

It is March, so my life should be pretty easy. Blue Skies, east winds, 12-18 shots at permit a day, and catching just enough fish to make it seem worth our while.  That is a normal March.  This one has been plagued with inconsistent weather and erratic fishing.  Still this wouldn’t have been that much of a problem, if I hadn’t lost my mojo. 

What does that mean?  Here are a few examples.  I sent my client wading after a group of hard tailers on a slick morning.  On the first cast a fish charges, humps up, and crashes the experimental fly.  Cory comes tight for three tails kicks, then slack.  Examining his rig, he notices the hook is still there, but the fish had eaten the fly off the hook.  It was completely gone.  Here is another.  On one of the rare good fishing, good weather days of the month, we broke off two permit on the hookset.  A faulty spool of Seagur Flourocarbon tippet was the culprit.  14lb broke at maybe 5 lbs.  At least it was my client’s spool.  Here is a more subtle one, a large single permit, sees a fly while my client is stripping in for a recast.  The fish charges the fly, lights up, dying to eat it, just as the fly is pulled from the water.  FUCK.  I can’t even talk about the fish that raced over to the fly, tailed up on it, then miraculously swam away without a hook in their face.  I tried waiting longer, stripping sooner, different flies.  Hell I almost sacrificed a KW chicken.

Fortunately calmer heads prevailed.  I just went tarpon fishing.  Four Caught fish (3 100lbers aand 1 50lb) with 5 more hooked and I feel like a new man.  I love tarpon.

I think I got my MOJO back.

later

john

As I sit here listening to the rain slap against the window in the stiff 30mph breeze and the temperature is droping nearly 30 degrees from the highs of yesterday, I can’t help but think about how spoiled I’ve become over the last few days. 

February is one of my favorite months in the Keys. When mother nature co-operates with unseasonably high temps and low winds this place comes alive like no other time of year. It’s a roll of the dice to trying to time this good weather to coincide with a trip. Some years the good weather never materializes and some years it lasts all month. For the last week it’s been like the Discovery Channel on steroids.

Two days ago on my way to the Marquesas, there where schools of mackerel shredding bait in the Boca Grande Channel. As we pulled up to the first flat inside Mooney Harbor, we saw the first permit tail of the day before I had even turned the motor off. I lost track of the number of shots we had but to put things into perspective, I didn’t change spots until around 1:30. I can already hear the comments that John and Drew will make about my next statement but . . . my client wanted to catch a cobia so I ran to a wreck about 7 miles west of the Marquesas. While no cobia were present, we did see something that was pretty amazing. About a dozen bull sharks, some over 300 lbs, circled the wreck as we floated over it. The sharks were mixed in with hundreds of cudas, a few small schools of permit, a huge jewfish, and thousands of other smaller snappers and jacks. The wreck was a sight to behold.

We headed back to the east side of the Marquesas and continued to permit fish when we saw the first school of tarpon rolling towards us. After switching rods, we began to get into position for a shot when we came across a monster sawfish, as long as my boat, with a small cobia following close behind. The last hours of the day where spent casting to schools of tarpon. Mostly big fish, between 60lbs and 120lbs, rolling, sliding, cruising, and eager to eat a well presented fly.

I won’t bore you with our numbers for the day. . . you wouldn’t believe me anyway.

Jacob

The fishing thus far this month has been almost everything that you could want for early February. The weather has been beautiful and the fish have responded. After a fairly typical January with almost weekly cold fronts moving through the area, February brought us warming temperatures and bright blue skies.

In fact, the weather has been so nice that it has had John and myself thinking of March and April. We have not been able to help ourselves and have had to check some spring time tarpon areas to see if some fish have been present. They have. While there haven’t been as many tarpon as there will be later in the spring, the sight of laid up tarpon holding and sliding in the current has us as giddy as school kids on the last day of class.

I checked for tarpon with Kris Williams of Boston early last week, after his buddy Graham had to leave after four days of chasing permit. Despite increasing winds we found a handful of fish in the first spot I checked. After a few shots to get familiar with the game, Kris connected solidly with a fat 120lb fish, landing his first tarpon. Unfortunately he had to catch an afternoon flight and the day was a short one. I had the next couple of days off and gladly took my parents, who were in town, out to chase some early season tarpon. Dad took his rightful place on the bow making great shots in the 20 knot wind. The first day we had three fish eat, catching two, on 12-15 shots. Both of the fish that we landed were in the 120-130lb range. The second day, a little windier than the day before, didn’t bring us as good of fortune. There were fish around but they just didn’t want anything to do with our best presentations.

Of course with the warming weather permit have been a primary focus. The beautiful weather also coincided with the new moon on the 6th of the month. This brought much better current flows and water levels that the permit can’t get enough of. While the permit fishing has been fairly dependable this winter, in the past week it has been exceptional. I had the chance to fish with Paul Shahinian of New Jersey for a couple of beautiful days late last week. On the first morning we fished a strong incoming tide getting multiple shots at singles and groups of fish working the flats. We caught two permit in the 10-15lb range. As the wind slackened my mind again went to tarpon, so we ran into the backcountry to tangle with some ‘poons. Unfortunately, the tarpon didn’t realize this was the plan and the fish we found had lock jaw. We finished the day fishing for tailers on the Gulf getting several great shots but no takers. Lesson learned - don’t leave fish to find fish. Duh.

Due to my poor decision the first day we decided to focus strictly on permit the second day. The wind was light but the fish were active. The first spot we hit, we had 12-15 shots at actively feeding and tailing groups of fish. We briefly came tight to one before the fly pulled out of its mouth. Although not as good, the midday fishing was dependable as we got several shots at every spot we fished. The late afternoon, however, was epic. At the final spot of day we were greeted by large, tailing permit. The fish were tailing so aggressively that they would often throw water several feet in the air as they rooted for crabs. The fish, many in the 20-25lb class, were on high alert in the 18-24 inch water. The shallow, falling tide in combination with light winds and bright blue skies made the fish especially wary, but the numbers of fish and what they were doing made it a memorable afternoon. Although we didn’t get one, as I ran back to the dock I couldn’t keep the smile off of my face.

February always seem to be a special month. When you hit the weather right it can provide all of the great fishing that you expect later in the spring. However, it always seems to be a game of give and take. After a cold front Sunday, the wind has been 25-30 knots and the next couple of days are supposed to be rainy with occasional thunderstorms. In fact, I just heard the first rumble of thunder this year. Luckily, warmer weather is (hopefully) not far off and the fishing we had this week will become more and more commonplace. I for one can’t wait to consistently start tangling with laid up fatties.

Drew

BRRRR!  

We have just been hit by a major cold front, with 30kt winds, highs in the 50’s and night temps in the 40’s.  It does not get much colder than this.  Needless to say the fishing has shut down.  Hell it’s so cold, it almost makes the fishing of just a few days ago seem like a mirage.

Before this front, our weather had been spectacular.  Blue skies, E or SE winds, and warm humid air; perfect conditions for winter time permit fishing.  I would love to say I had been out there wearing them out, but that would be an untruth.  I, like most everyone else, spent the last half of December entertaining out of town family members and enjoying the holiday season.  Sometimes it is nice to have a little time off the water.

Still, I was very excited to get back on the water, and Rob Clark from CA gave me the perfect excuse.  We fished two days, on the 30 and 31st, and enjoyed spectacular weather, and good fishing.   We spent the 30th targeting permit.  A falling tide on the Gulf gave us some early shots at backing permit, but a long run to the west of Key West gave us fish.  Here we fished the last of the flood thru the fall.  With the exception of a slow couple of hours around mid-day (hey I hadn’t fished in awhile) we were into fish all day.  The highlight of the day, a 10lb fish that chased down an aggressively stripped merkin knock-off, was Rob’s first permit on fly.  We finished the day with a 6lb bonefish and numerous shots at hard-tailing permit. 

Not to be outdone that day, Drew and his client, Court Ramsay of Lafayette, Louisiana, caught a pig of a bone in the backcountry. The broad shouldered fish made the 12lb mark easily.

The last day of 2007 greated Rob and I with 77 degree air temps and slick calm conditions.  I couldn’t help myself, I had to go tarpon fishing.  At our first two stops , we were greated with numerous rolling tarpon.  Even better, these were big fish (60-100+).  While many single were rolling around, we only targeted the schools, some of which held 50 or more fish.  Unfortunately, luck was not on our side.  We came tight to three fish, but none managed to stay on for more than a moment. 

By 10:30 the wind kicked up a touch, the sun came out, and the conditions were perfect.  Again, I couldn’t help myself.  We fished six areas for laid up fish, and found them in three.  With the blue skies and laid-up fatties, it felt like April.

We finished off our day targeting tailers.  While not as crazy as the night before, there were enough to get excited about.  By the end of the day, we still hadn’t managed to get a fish in the boat. (Sorry Rob, a Lane Snapper doesn’t count).  Still, there aren’t many better ways to go fishless than this.

Happy New Year All.  I hope we can share a boat sometime.

John