‪I had a day off to go flats fishing. We went west of Key West in search of bonefish permit and barracudas. I fished with Captain Mike Bartlett and Captain Griff Hellwig. We all landed bonefish on fly and had a couple of shots at permit.

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.

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.

This week I spent the majority of my time on the flats in search of bonefish and permit. A high pressure system set in over Key west so we had plenty of sun and wind. The fishing has been very slow on the flats and this week was no different. Rich Stroum landed a very nice permit on his very first cast. I fished three days with Rich and his brother, we had had several shots at both permit and bonefish but we did not hook up again.

The tarpon fishing has also been slow. There are plenty of fish around but they are really not to interested in feeding. They should start heading out to the deep to do their annual spawn. That being said I have had at least 1 jumped fish in each of my trips and went 1 for 3 on my last day.

My old time client Ted Shrek came back after a 4 year hiatus, we decided to go barracuda fishing. Ted landed 3 cudas, 1 was truly a trophy.

I took Giles Cook and his farther out Shark fishing. We fished a bomb hole west of Key west, we landed 6 sharks and left with with tired arms.

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.

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.

Fishing today in Key west started out at 7am. John and I set out looking for tarpon, we spotted a few schools of fast moving fish. We finally found a massive group of slow moving tarpon and we had 1 eat a large pinfish. The fish instantly ran toward some structure and I could not maneuver my boat quickly enough and we broke off. We spent 30 more minutes tarpon fishing before we headed to the flats. I caught the beginning of the incoming in search of permit, sharks and barracudas. We hooked and landed our first cuda but missed a few others before we moved on. I found some warmer water and on john’s first cast he missed a trophy sized barracuda. John missed a few more cudas before we hooked up again, this fish was slightly bigger than the one before. The clouds started to build and I was having a hard time seeing so of course this is the time the permit started tailing. The first 1 tailed in about 2-3ft of water, truly large fish. We waited for it to show itself but no luck. The next few fish followed the same game plan. We did not see another permit for the rest of the day.

Today i had the pleasure of fishing with 2 of my favorites client, Bill and Terry. We went out today in search of bonefish and permit. I headed to a flat east of Key west that has been good for bonefish. I spotted my first school of bonefish after about 15 minutes. Bill did not hook up on the first few schools but once I changed from a crab to a jig, he hooked up right away. We finished this flat and went in search of permit. I only found 1 before we headed home.

Yesterday I fished with Capt Mike Bartlett. We started out fishing for tarpon and found some rolling but we did not get a bite. We went west of Key west in search of the elusive permit. We caught the beginning of the incoming tide and found a good number of permit, he caught this nice permit on fly.

Today I fished with Sue and Dale. We set out of Key west at 7am in search of tarpon. Our first drift Dale hooked and landed a 60-80 pound tarpon. We tried another spot that had a few rolling fish but all we hooked were a few nice jacks. Off to the flats to do some permit and barracuda fishing. Dale once again hooked and land a nice barracuda off of our first and second flat. Our third flat was a bust so we headed home.

My second half was with Terry Hamby. We hit a few spot east of Key west and landed a few barracudas and jacks. We went in search of permit and had a few shot but we did not hook up. We did see several nice sharks and a few dolphin.