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.

‪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.

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.

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.

Today I had my first double of the new year. My first trip was with a long time client Al Mcaughlin and his son Roy. Al prefers action over size so we went east of Key west in search of jacks. I ran to a little cut that has been working well on the incoming tide and we had action right away. Roy started by catching a few nice snappers before we got into the jacks. I posted up the boat and for about 30 minutes it was non stop action. We hit 2 more spots that did not work before we headed home.
My next trip was with a fly fisherman by the name of Mike Miller. We hit the flats in search of permit and jacks. We saw a permit right away but that would be our last of the day. The clouds started to form so our only chance were jacks on the backs of sting ray’s. Mike missed a few fish before he hooked up and landed a nice jack. The skies darkened to the point that we could not see the muds very well so as hard as we tried we did not hook up again.

2 days ago I had a no show so I decided to fish with my good friend Capt Peter Heydon, we started out looking for tailing permit on the incoming tide. We spotted 2 tailing fish before we lost the tide and the sky so our next step was tarpon fishing. We fished an Atlantic side white sand spot and had a few shots but no eats. At the turn of the tide we fished a spot that usually is quite productive and sure enough I hooked up to a nice 40 pounder that I got close to the boat before I put to much pressure and broke off on the class tippet.

Today I fished with groom to be Tom Vallon and his friend TJ, We started out fishing for tarpon north of Key west. Tj was the first one 2 hook up, his fish ate a live blue crab and we landed him after 15 minutes. Tom hooked his fish when a string of tarpon came cruising by while we were looking for permit. We landed this fish and were able to get out of the water for the picture. Permit fishing was a little slow but we did see sharks, rays and turtles. We finally found a working flat and after a few missed shots we finally landed a nice permit.

The past 3 days of Key west flats fishing saw the last day of a successful week of fishing with Carl Knoblock, the last day Carl jumped a nice tarpon and landed another around 70 pounds. I also fished with Kevin/Allyson Nix, we jumped a tarpon, lost a permit and landed 2 sharks to finish the day. The finale day saw me fish with Sam Collett, he landed his first tarpon on fly and hooked a nice bonefish that spit the hook after a smoking run. We finished the day with a few shots at tailing permit but did not get a bite.

The last few days I have been fishing with Carl Knoblok. We have been mostly targeting tarpon on fly and have been having early morning success. Carl hooked his first tarpon durning a nice hatch and after a 40 minute fight we put to much pressure on the fish and broke off in the class tippet. The next morning the hatch was spread out and Carl did not hook up however I landed a nice permit on a mantis shrimp pattern. We then went to the Marquesas but it was very slow. Today we found another hatch however it was spread out and it took Carl a bit of time but we finally hooked up on a nice 40 pounder, we got a few jumps but eventually broke off. We fished west of Key west and had quite a few shots but Carl did not feed any tarpon. I did get an eat from a huge laid up tarpon that ate a chartreuse and yellow fly.

This is my first post for almost 2 weeks and I do apologize. The first week without a report was because I did not fish, I am very easy going but when someone books me for a week and does not show up it does piss me off. The last 6 days I had the pleasure of fishing Florenzo, he is a truly gifted fly fisherman from Italy. In 6 days of fishing truly horrific fishing conditions “wind, clouds and rain” we jumped 17 tarpon and had a few more eats but here is the kicker we did not land 1, crazy. Today I fished with long time client and friend Carl from Connecticut. The winds started to pick up so we decided to go permit fishing, this is a fish on Carl’s bucket list. We headed west of Key west to catch the incoming tide off the gulf, Our first fish was a very nice barracuda but soon the permit started to come in. We focused on permit and after a few shots we hooked up on our first permit but we lost it. We landed our very next permit we saw but missed a few more before I decided to move. Carl hooked up on the first fish we saw on our next flat. The next spot we saw 4 fish and carl landed 2, not bad for a first time permit fisherman.

Second day with John, We started fishing tarpon on a huge white sand spot due to low light conditions. We had a nice school of tarpon that got spooked before we even presented the fly. We spooked a few more fish at the next flat, the 3rd spot we missed a permit that ate our crab. The 4th spot we finally hooked and landed a nice Key west permit.