Key West Fly Fishing

The Southwest Florida wildfires have added an erie element to our calm waters.  The last week we have been greeted each morning with little or no winds, but our clear skies have been filled with blankets of wildfire smoke.  You would think we were fishing Montana in August.  Despite the smoke clouds the fishing has been better than average.  The poons are swimming well along the Lower Keys Atlantic lanes. For those willing to play the numbers game, they have been eating, but 95% of the fish swim by showing little interest in even our best presentations.  Personally, I can only take so much rejection, and have been spending as little time as possible fishing for these swimmers.  Most of my time has been spent hunting backcountry corners looking for little pockets of fish that have decided to quit swimming and spend a little time here.  Most of these corners have been near empty, but when you find the fish, it is worth the wait.

Steve Schimdt of Western Rivers Outfitters and friend Ken Louder put up with hours of such “fishing” and were rewarded with two afternoons of spectacular fishing.  We were not fishing a “top secret” area, but nonetheless found the edge to ourselves.  It wasn’t the numbers that were so impressive (there were a ton of fish though), but rather what the fish were doing.  Every fish was big, high in the water column, often with tails out of the water, and very shallow.  Many of our shots were at fish laid-up and sliding fish in only a couple of feet of water.  On top of this the fish themselves were unusually bright many with distinct orange and pink tails.  Beautiful fish and fishing.  Our last two days yielded 12 or so “bites” with only a hadful of fish in the air (three for those keeping score).  This doesn’t sound like much, but there was something about how we were fishing that left us all feeling like rockstars at the end of the day.  Fun stuff.

Well, tomorrow i am off looking for exactly the opposite thing.  I’m off to find the thundering herd in the Marquesas.  I will let you know how it goes.

 Capt John