Key west monthly fishing report by AWS charters

Another month has gone by and after viewing my photos, I am happy to say the fishing is much improved over July. The spotlight fishing would be permit. They finally started to flood the flats and my anglers took full advantage, James Tew caught the largest 1 using a live blue. We hooked this one on the falling tide along the Atlantic side of Key west, he was on top of the water searching sea weed for shrimps and crabs. If you have never seen this happen it is very cool, the permit will swim to each ball of sea weed, nudge it with its nose and hope to dislodge something to eat. Dave Durgason and his son caught a permit while fishing tarpon. We caught the tail end of a guppy hatch and had already released a nice tarpon. I noticed some permit feeding along side the tarpon, Dave made a perfect cast and it was a 50/50 wether a tarpon or permit ate, it turned out to be a permit, 2/3 of the slam. We ended up catching a bonefish to complete the slam.

Bone fishing also got much better east of Key west. Long time client Paul Adams from London caught his first bonefish while fishing a white sand spot near jewfish basin. I had a chance to be up on the bow quite a bit this past month, Capt Peter Heydon polled me around the Content keys. This set of keys are around Big pine so I only get a chance to fish this area a few times a year. The Contents always have bonefish and a lot of times really big fish, I did not land any really large fish but I did land 4 around 6pounds.

I have been seeing and catching more barracudas then normal for this time of the year. James tew caught a really nice 1 and 2 other clients. I normally do not have a rod set up for cudas but I am in the process of adding another rod/reel to make sure I am always prepared. I have mentioned many times that barracudas are 1 of my favorite fish to catch and it is good to see the numbers I have this past june.

The tarpon fishing has remained tough.Early August I found some hatches going off and were able to catch a few but as the month progressed the hatches stopped due to wind and I just could not find them.

Shark fishing has really turned on, last month, I remember scratching my head trying to find some sharks for my clients. This is unusual because shark fishing is as close to a guarantee as there is on the flats. Derric Fredrick and his wife landed sharks on their fishing trip, these were largest fish they ever caught so both were quite happy.