The Keys for Christmas

December 15-20, 2008

Sunrise on Little Torch Key

 

Needing a serious break from the Seattle weather, as well as work, I shipped a release on Thursday night and then caught a flight for Ft. Lauderdale to begin a week-long trip from Biscayne Bay to Key West with Jeff.  We knew that December could be tough and that fishing wouldn't be stellar but still the weather wasn't frightful (as it was at home) and Jeff and I had fun, ate good food, met some good guides, saw some great flats, and managed to catch a few fish here and there.

Biscayne Bay

First stop was Biscayne Bay which we had fished with a guide on a  November 2007 trip.   We pretty much hit the same water, launching at the Homestead Bayfront Park and heading south to the water around the Turkey Point power plant.  We fished some water north of the plant first but, on finding nothing, headed around the point.  We started seeing some bonefish, and some huge bonefish, on the flats south of the plant but the best water was that at the far south end of the bay below the plant.  Here we had multiple shots at singles and doubles with some fish in the 10-12 lbs. range.   Coming up on the flat at the end of the point I got up to pole, looked back and saw two of the biggest bonefish I'd ever seen just off the rear of the boat.  Jeff cast but the fish shot out of there almost as soon as the fly landed.

I finally hooked up on an olive Puglisi spawning shrimp on a big fish only to have it break me off at the tippet knot.   A short time later I hooked up again and really tried hard to loose this fish as my line wrapped around the reel seat just as it was nearing the end of clearing.  Miraculously the fish turned just then and came back toward the boat and with slack I was able to undo the wrap, tighten up again, and land my first Biscayne Bay bonefish.   Granted, this was maybe the smallest bone in all of Biscayne Bay but still, any bonefish in Biscayne or the Keys is an accomplishment, especially when you are on a DIY trip.

Flamingo/Islamorada

On Tuesday we met Drew Moret, son of Keys legend Sandy Moret,  in Islamorada and took off for the flats at Flamingo first thing in the morning.    We pulled up on the first flat only to spook out a huge snook right away and that set the pattern for the morning, most fish were sulking in the weeds only to spook as we ran them over.  Jeff did manage to get a decent redfish pretty early on so we had hope but waited a long time for the second hookup, a sight-caught 4+ lbs. seatrout.   I had one great shot at a red but the fish spooked on me and a few shots at snook who wanted nothing to do with my fly. 

Jeff's Redfish	A pretty good sized Trout

We left late morning in search of tarpon but only saw one huge fish come up and dive immediately down again, no hope of catching them.  We now had to decide to head back to Flamingo or go after bonefish in Islamorada and chose to look for bones, a mistake in hindsight.

Oceanside flat on Islamorada

We fished one flat on the inside then three to four beautiful flats on the outside but never saw a single bone the whole time. 

Key Largo Flats

Day three was another DIY day and we decided to fish flats around Key Largo for bones.   We launched from the Rock Reef where we were staying, cut across Buttonwood Sound, through Tarpon Basin, into Blackwater Sound then into Largo Sound, and finally out to the flats around Rattlesnake Key. 

Our route through Key Largo and the flats we fished

We saw some amazing flats during the day, the outside edge of Rattlesnake Key looked like primo permit water and the big flat was one of the most beautiful fishless bonefish flats we'd ever seen.   Going back into Largo Sound we poled for hours along the flats there and finally saw one lone bonefish which spooked long before we got anywhere near it.  We did see a few cuda around but the bonefishing was bleak.

Launching at Rock Reef	The "sandy beach" at Rock Reef
Wreck out in the Atlantic en-route to the Rattlesnake Key flats

We gave up early due to wind and headed to our new home on Big Pine Key then headed down to Key West to dine and shop at the original Margaritaville on Duval Street. 

Big Pine Key

Next we took off for the Lower Keys, staying at Parmer's Resort on Little Torch Key.  Here we fished the flats outside of Big Pine as well as Coupon Bight on a day where the wind wouldn't give us much of a break. 

We launched from Little Torch and cut under the bridge, doing a bit of trolling around the bridge before cutting across and starting to hit the inner flat on the inside of the Newfound Harbor Keys.  The water was just starting to come up so we soon headed for the outside flats.  The flats on the outside were beautiful and had life, just no bonefish.  We saw plenty of bonnet sharks, lemon sharks, boxfish and barracuda out there but no bones.   After a while we decided to just focus on trying for anything that would hit.  We had one bonnet take a Bunky Shrimp but missed the hookup.  Several other bonnets checked out our flies.  One lemon made a pass at my cuda fly.   After running over and spooking a few cuda I just started fishing the 10-weight for cuda.  Pretty quickly in a big pothole I had a hard strike from a decent cuda and my first fish in a few days was finally on and I landed the 33-36" fish.   Barracuda

After rounding the point we headed into Coupon Bight, another beautiful but fishless bonefish flat.  Again, we gave up on the bones and started targeting cuda and did pretty well.  The rest of the afternoon until the light was lost we landed another half-dozen cuda and had quite a few more shots at them which we either blew or the fish just didn't take. 

Outer flats at Newfound Harbor.  The white spot in the sky is the drug radar blimp.	Beautiful flats at Coupon Bight
One of the smaller Coupon Bight cudas

We did see a Keys deer out on one of the small keys while fishing and that night, heading back from the No Name Pub, we saw another one on the road on Big Pine and yet another the morning we were leaving, these were the first Keys deer I've seen.

Lower Keys Backcountry

On our last day we went out with Capt. Bruce Chard who I knew from a friend and from his great fly lines. 

We began the day running out to the east of the Content Keys where we fished a big channel for jacks while there was no light and the water was still cool.  We found jacks but no big ones.  Bruce would chug a big popper through to tease up the fish then we'd toss out the fly doing the tease and switch just like Baja.  We landed some of the jacks but they were only a few pounds each.  A few big guys came up one for a few seconds but wouldn't stay up.  Bummer. We went looking for permit and tarpon the rest of the day.  We poled several nice flats without seeing a thing and finally on the last flat we encountered three permit on the flat but only had a shot at one of them.  Needless to say, that shot didn't pan out or there would be a permit picture here.   The clouds just kept building all day and visibility became impossible so we called it a day early and headed back.  That night, on Bruce's recommendation we drove to Cudjoe Key and ate at the Square Grouper, which was excellent.

Coming Home to the Cold

The whole time I was in Florida living in the sunshine the weather had gone to hell in Seattle.  With one storm after another I really wasn't sure I wanted to come home or I would make it home.  It looked like I would thread the needle between storms and just pulled it off.  SeaTac looked more like Anchorage as we landed and shortly after we touched down at 6 p.m. they closed the airport.  While it took me over 2 hours to drive the normal 35 minute drive I did finally make it home to find the house covered with snow and another storm brewing.  By the time I woke up we had 10" on the ground and, as I write this, it is snowing hard again with another 2-4" on the way today and tonight.  Those rentals in the Keys are looking more tempting...

The house buried in snow	The studio looks like a ski cabin