Fishing the Keys

I had the opportunity to fish down in the Keys while I was at a conference and had a good time fishing quite a bit different on two separate charters. 

The first day out we fished around Duck Key looking for barracudas.  It was pretty cool to fish for these guys as they were action from the word go.  I threw topwater all day while Dr. C and Frank mixed it up with some soft plastics.  Most of the fish were about this size.

But our last fish of the day was a little bit larger and a bit meaner.

It was a pretty cool site to see a fish chase a really fast moving lure.  It was your job to take the bait away but most of the time the cuda won!

The next day Patrick and I got a little slow start back to Islamorada as US 1 was shut down between Duck Key and there due to a major accident so by the time we got to Islamorada to meet our guide the sun was up but he was pretty sure we would still have a shot a tarpon or two so we put the hammer down and headed towards Flamingo.  The first flat was empty but as we were poling on to the second flat we saw a tarpon roll and then we started seeing some fish.  Patrick was up and had his shot and a refusal 10 ft from the boat.  My turn on the stick and I think it was the first fish I casted to turned to look at the fly and inhaled it.  In a flash the tarpon ran right at the boat and then out away as I'm trying to clear line and get the fish on the reel.  About that time it started peeling drag and then went airborne as the fly did right back at me.  I was disappointed but pumped that I at least got one to eat and with the flat conditions and clearing skies we figured we had a couple more shots.  

We went looking on another couple of basins and in the second one we found the fish.  Well we had our shots at quite a few fish but they were either not interested in our fly or something.  We had a errant sea turtle scare off one fish and just the wake of a passing boat sent the fish scurrying away.  Everything was started to line up and the sun seemed to dip behind the clouds that were starting to form and the breeze just picked up enough to put a little ripple on the water and that was it.

Just a bunch of shots with no other takers but some crazy good fun on a fly.  We went to one redfish flat and saw a couple peel away in the cloudy water so we started making our way back to the marina. 

 

We did have another couple shots at some smaller tarpon and one very large group of bonefish that came screaming onto the flat but it just wasn't meant to be.  We are already planning on getting back down there and chase the silver king as we just got our whistle wet on this first outing.