Paul had a banner day of flats fishing west of Key west. He landed 3 bonefish, 2 permit and a barracuda

I have been fishing mostly west of Key West for the past week. with the warm weather My clients have been landing sharks, bonefish, barracudas, sharks and jacks. we have had shots at permit with both fly and spin but no hook ups.

‪Patrick and his wife Allyson had a great day flats fishing. We landed barracudas, bar jacks, jack crevelle, horse eye jacks, mutton snappers and groupers.‬

I fished with Jim and Karen from Wisconsin. they wanted to go out and do some backcountry fishing. We landed Jacks,blue runners, lady fish, pompano also a Blacktip shark and a very large barracuda.

I fished with a farther son team from Germany. We started out fly fishing for tarpon but did not get any shots. We next went to a channel, I taught Arvan the son how to cast and jig fish. We kept him busy catching jacks, blue runners and snapper. We then went shark fishing and caught this nice black tip shark. We decided to get back on the flats and after missing a few barracudas we finally landed this nice cuda.

This past week I fished some of my favorites clients. Every day this week I departed Key west at 6am in search of tarpon, my results were quite mixed . Most days my clients would jump or land 1 or 2 fish but the bite would slow down after the sun came up , Glen from Toronto was the exception, He jumped and almost landed his fish before breaking off boat side.

I have done plenty of flats fishing for permit this week. Most of these fish are still out spawning but Phil Jones and Charles Taylor both landed Permit this week.

The number of Barracuda on the flats is really down which is quite normal for this time of year, however Glen Struman landed 2 huge ones. The first one was while tarpon fishing with a pin fish and the second 1 was with a tube lure, the larger of the 2 was eaten by a shark so I did not take a picture of the half we got in. Matt “the fishing mortician” also landed a nice cuda while fishing west of Key west.

I only went shark fishing once this week and that was with Sam and James form England. We hooked and landed several sharks on both spin and fly.

Bone fishing was the least productive, I found 1 school of mudding fish. Phil hooked 2 but both somehow came off.

I am going to start this fishing report describing a shark fishing trip that I had with 2 of my favorites clients. Both of their names are Amy so I refer to them as Amy squared. Our last trip we caught tarpon and barracudas so they wanted to have a different challenge. We headed east of Key west in search of lady fish, wherever there are lady fish black tip sharks are close by. We found plenty of bait on my third location and we proceeded to catch 1 shark after another. Our total in a 4 hr trip was 3 black tips and 2 lemon. Giles and his farther also had a god day of shark fishing.

After the great day of shark fishing we decide to go barracuda fishing. Once again we headed east of Key west. We landed 5 barracudas, 2 of them were trophy sized. Chris Barbe and his friend Jim also head a good day of cuda fishing.

The Tarpon fishing has been very good lately. Chris Bye jumped 2 and broke 1 off at the boat. Ted and Theo Worthington jumped 1 and landed 1. I had another charter that jumped four tarpon before first light but did not land any.

Last of all I will talk about permit fishing. I had just 1 chance to fish for permit and my client Tim Sherword land a beauty. I did spot a few bonefish while fighting this permit but was not prepared.

The annual tarpon migration is in full swing down here in Key west. Everyone goes tarpon crazy “both clients and captains”, These fish are truly world class. You can fish them in so many different ways, Fly fish, lure fish, live bait and dead bait. The one thing that is common among all these different methods is that when you hook up you will be battling a fish that will test your strength as well as every part of your equipment. This week I have caught or jumped tarpon on everything but dead bait. Kurt Logan jumped his first fish on fly but the hook broke and the tarpon got away. His 10 year old son Luke jumped one on a pinfish that we lost boat side.

I also had the pleasure of hooking up Randy/Larry Reed and long time client Ted/Theo worthington on tarpon this week. Larry hooked up with a pinfish west of
Key west on an incoming tide. We all fought this 80 pounder before he broke off boat side, Randy asked for a much smaller tarpon but we did not hook up.

Ted and Theo Worthington hooked and landed a very nice 60 pounder.

After looking at my pictures I realize that shark fishing has been very good. I had a wonderful day of fishing with Tim and Ashley Dugan. We caught the top of the tide 4 miles west of Key west. This spot is a large white sand spot right next to and island and we landed 4 large lemon sharks before we went fishing for barracudas. 10 Year old Luke Logan also had a good day land 1 lemon and 1 black tip shark.

The barracuda fishing is starting to slow down as they head back to the deeper water. I did have a bit of success landing smaller cudas, here are pictures of fish caught by Randy Reed and Theo Worrington

The jack fishing remains strong with Tim and Ashley landing several fish while jig fishing off of Boca grande. Luke Logan caught a very nice bar jack while fishing tarpon off of Key west.

I have not been doing much bone fishing or permit fishing but I have found fish the few times I have tried.

It was another beautiful day as I departed Key west harbor. My clients were Bill and Jim from Wisconsin. We were in search of tarpon so we headed to a spot that usually hold fish on an incoming tide. I had to move a few times but Bill hooked and landed his first tarpon.

We decide to switch gears and head to the flats in search of Barracudas and permit.Our first spot had a pair of tailing permit but we could not get the crab in the right place. Our second flat both Jim and Bill hooked nice cudas and had shots at permit.

I had a double half today. My first half wanted to fish tarpon in the morning and then just catch fish for his wife. I took them to the main shipping channel off of Key west to see if any migratory fish has shown up. There were no fish there but I did find a school in Key west harbor. We jumped a nice 60-80 pounder but lost it on the first jump. We drifted a few spots with no luck before I tried to just bend some rods. I hit a spot that we had a chance for jack and tarpon. The jacks were all over the place, we had landed 1 after the other before I spotted several schools of tarpon. No luck on the tarpon so I switched and hit another spot for action. This spot had lady fish, sea trout, pompano, snappers and sharks.
My second half, we headed east of Key west to a channel that has been good for large jacks. We hooked up several that got eaten by sharks before we landed a nice 8 pounder. We landed several more nice jacks and a large nurse shark before we headed to another spot. I hit some mullet muds and landed a few lady fish. I switched gears and went barracuda fishing. We missed several nice cudas before we land a very nice barracuda.