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 The Florida Keys: What I Learned
Posted by MarshallD on April 22, 2005
 As a first-timer fly fishing the Keys, all I can say for advice is plan to stay four or five days. Stay on Islamorada. You can get a room as low as $39 a night http://www.keylantern.com/ right near where the Flats Guides launch. Stay for 4 or 5 nights. A buddy, who’s fished there before, marked several Keys flats on my Florida DeLorme. Capt. John Kumiski’s, Flyrodding Florida Salt. Shows that Islamorada has enough flats nearby to keep the wading angler busy for months. Most of the public access wading flats in the Keys are near Islamorada, Lower Matacumbe Key, Long Key, Bahia Honda Key and Marathon Key. If I were going there again, I’d spend at least a 2 or 3 full days wading each tide per day. Stand, Don't Walk! Be sure to stand, though. Don’t wade aimlessly or
you’ll stir up the mud (Bonefish avoid muddy water). Pick a spot from the beach. Then wade out and watch for fish. Sun at your back wind on your side, you’ll be experiencing the beauty of the scene; the big sky meeting ocean in brilliant hues of green and blue, sunrises and sunsets, crystalline water, colorful marine life, some swimming above and some affixed to a carpet of sparse grasses and firm-to-squishy bottom. And as you wade calf-deep in 77-degree salt water, like me, you may think that except for the nearby Route 1 road traffic, this is as much serenity as any flyrodder needs.
Spooky Ghosts of the Flats
The Bonefish is a spooky, fast, hard to hook and hard to land game fish. Seeing them is a thrill. Casting to them is a great challenge and exciting. The hooking part eluded us this time. Does it always have to be about all the big fish we caught? A Cabellas Big Slam got my picher on the cove of the rollin stone?
Friends
Teaming up with a friend who’s been Tarpon fishing, Permit fishing or Bone fishing here on the
Keys or elsewhere is smart. I sometimes get smart. The more eyes on the water the better. I asked a good friend and superb caster to join me in the Keys. We talked less than we fished, ate and drank more than we should have and had a smokin' good time.
Prepare to be confident
I'm glad I practiced. You’ll be more confident too, if you practice some casting on windy days like I did in advance of my Keys trip. I needed to make strong, accurate, athletic casts in all directions. Coil lots of line in loops in your line hand so that in only a few motions, you can deliver 30 to 60 feet in a hurry.
Guided or Self-Guided?
We hired a guide not so much as to ‘catch us fish’, but to learn techniques and areas to fish from a local. We asked questions like, “Where can we wade?” We did get the guide’s pick on a location, a little on tides, but wanted more. In brain picking, size does matter. He did our rigging, but he didn’t say much more about wading or tell us more techniques. I tried to pick his brain. But not much of a flow of info erupted. A guide here may give up stuff you may not get to learn otherwise. On the other hand, he may not tell you the day’s techniques in any great detail; like different ways to present to certain fish, like what conditions we’ll encounter, how to respond to the “boat clock”. You might get taken for surprise if all of a sudden your guide yells at the top of his lungs, “Your eleven thirty! Ten Feet out! Strip! Strip! Strip! You’re supposed to do this all at once. That's expected. A good guide though, will talk a blue streak about what you should expect today while he checks your rigging, tests your knots. It might make a difference whether you say you “have some experience” or not. I’d say, try your best to talk to your guide a lot in advance and consider telling him you are a total beginner.
I should have asked the guide that day to simply find us some tailing Bonefish. We opted to give him a broad idea instead, simply asking to fly fish for Bonefish and Tarpon. He took what I suspect was his usual route. The wind didn’t find him as much as he found the wind. I can say for certain that it is less fun to cast into a wind to spooked school of Bonefish from a bouncing platform than it is to wade another less windy flat and be possily casting to tails. I should have asked the guide to just find some tails. Maybe then he could have taken us to more flats on the lee side. I’m surprised he didn’t think of that himself. I didn’t complain or offer up alternatives, because I feel too new to the Keys, so after just doing his morning loop, and all of us looking for Bonefish in wind for three hours, we gave up and finally asked him to go find Tarpon.
POON
He found them off shore in weeds and more wind. yippee. We each had several chances, but it was few and spooky fish and long 50-mile an hour bouncing rides between pole sets. All in all this was an expensive, bumpy boat ride but we had some chances at both Bones and Tarpon.
Wading for Tailing Bones
Tailing Bonefish. “Happy fish”, as my buddy says. Translucent forked tails, fluttering just above the surface, a click, click, click sound near you that says, “I’m chomping crabs and mud!” Also saying, “My head is down in the mud and I’m pushing with my tail, rooting out that crab!” Bonefish jaws are among the strongest in the animal world. They can crush a hard shell easily, so a finger, ...I don’t want to think about that! Crabs are afraid of Bonefish and their only way to survive is to burrow down in the flat. They can’t outrun a Bonefish so they hide, hoping the little puff of mud they dig up isn’t seen (As if crabs have ability to “hope”).
I'll Go Back
In all the hours we fished, over two full days, we cast to maybe 16 Bonefish between us that were tailing. And it was fun. We fished at three different flats on one or more tides. We searched for other flats. Some of the flats we looked over but never fished because of windy conditions or because it was getting late. We took a ride to Key West and had a lunch, a break from standing and watching water.
Some Tips I Was Given
Look for tails anywhere, especially near the shore in really skinny water. But they can show up anywhere, so be prepared to cast in any direction. Cast to as near to the puffs or better yet, near the flipping tails while they flip. Tails up means the Bonefish’s head is down in the mud chomping and he might not notice the plop of the fly near him. Maybe he’ll be facing your fly in the mud as you twitch it. And, as you twitch it just enough to cause another “puff”, he may chomp on it. It's like nymphing in mud! I don’t know, but they say that after a Bonefish takes, all Hell breaks loose. I DON"T KNOW! But that’s why I’m going Bone fishing in the Keys again.
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Re: Fly Fishing The Florida Keys: What I Learned
by patm on April 22, 2005 | | Great article. Well written and informative. |
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Re: Fly Fishing The Florida Keys: What I Learned
by Pete on April 22, 2005 http://www.fishingjones.com | | I wish I read your story a few years ago before my first Islamorada flats trip. You hear all the Keys lore and it's easy to think all you have to do is show up. But it really is a complex puzzle, and it sounds like you're having fun solving it. (I still haven't, I had to go to the Bahamas to catch a bone!) Hope you made it to the Lorelei. |
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Re: Fly Fishing The Florida Keys: What I Learned
by MarshallD on April 22, 2005 http://www.flyanglersguide.com | Thanks for the compliments on the story. I hope it's a contender for a prize.
We ate at the Lorelie 2 nights and altho pricey by Maine standards, the Stone Crab Dinner and Shrimp Dinner were good. Nice treat after staring at water all day.
Unlike many other submissions, this story is not as much about a big fish or what we caught. Hopefully information on fishing the Keys friends here at F+F can use. |
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Re: Fly Fishing The Florida Keys: What I Learned
by RickW on April 22, 2005 | Great, Great article Marshall. very helpful and informative.
You have my vote for this month (which along with a buck will get you a cup of coffee) lol
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Re: Fly Fishing The Florida Keys: What I Learned
by waterwhippa on April 22, 2005 http://salmonriverspecialists.com | Thanks for the information. Great read and very helpful. I'll be fishing the Keys the last week of June and the first week of July.
Can't wait. |
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