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 The Florida Keys: Tarpon, Barracuda And Jacks
Posted by jeremy on February 06, 2004
(2740 reads)
What a trip. Absolutely phenomenal fishing, to say the least. Let's see, we started on the West Coast of Florida catching Snook and Bluefish and then worked our way over to Ft. Lauderdale and down to Key West where we found plenty of
fish. Tarpon, Bonefish, Sharks, Barracuda, Jacks, Spanish Mackerel and Red Snapper. I arrived in Key West Late at night and my head hit the pillow in some run down motel. I was asleap in no time, exhausted from the drive. I dozed off to the weather man's forcast. 80 degress and bright sun. My eyes opened with the first light and I was on a flat in no time. I was surrounded by cyrstal clear blue water and I made my way out to a set of emerged rocks. I position myself perfectly on a flat rock. I layed out a cast and I was in heaven. I could see my white and brown clouser coming through the crystal clear water. Better yet, I could see several dark shadows darting back and forth behind my fly. Life was good until I threw my smoke down at my feet. I was casting and the next thing I knew I was watching my flyline zip threw the guides and then it was gone. I mean gone. Out into the deep channel. Yup, my smoke burned right through the fly line. So, I dove in opened my eyes and fetched it from the deep. I spliced it back together and I was back in action. WHAM! I had a great fish on. A good sized Spanish Mackerel and just as I was brining him to hand a huge pelican swooped down and swallowed the fish and my fly. I proceeded to real in the pelican and cut the mono as close to the fly as possible. I thought about trying to get the fish and fly back from the pelican, but he had a BIG beak and he wanted nothing to do with me sticking my hand down his throat. So, I made a friend, He stood by me for some time and I fed him a few more fish. I hope he is still ok out there. I caught loads of jacks and spanish mackerel and just when I was getting bored with them, the incredible happened. I had a decent sized Jack on my line and I was bringing him in and WHAM a huge Barracuda attacked the fish. I managed to fight the barracuda for a short amount of time, but his teeth cut through my tippet in no time. Then the tide turned and started to come in and I could not believe my eyes. Tuna were feeding in the current and I wanted one. So I threw on the biggest fly I had and actually got one to take. He was just too big though and he broke me off in no time. Then I watched a great sunset off the tip of Key West and called it a day. I met up with Greg and Tom, got some dinner and then Tom and I went Tarpon fishing under the lights. The Tarpon were everywhere and they were patroling the docks in droves. Unfortunately we got kicked off the one dock that was the most promising. Just as we were getting our groove down and casting to these monster Tarpon, a hotel security guard gave us the boot. So we wandered to the Blue Lagoon Motel at about 3am and crashed. We all woke up early the next morning and Greg took us to a fantastic flat on a remote key. Within minutes of wading out to a nice section of the flat, Greg and I both had fish on and off. I had a barracuda and I think Greg did too. We lost both of them. I was getting tired of the barracuda breaking me off, so I tied on a steal leader and casted again. WHAM! a nice sized cuda took my fly and I landed him with confidence. Everyone was getting fish. I then saw some action transpiring around a lone mangrove tree way out on the flat. I could see a fin circling around the mangrove and driving fish against the tree. I made my way out there and started casting to the fish. I could not believe the size of this fish, until I realized it was not a fish. It was a shark. All of a sudden paradise turned into a nightmare. All of a sudden I felt very vulnerable standing on this flat. The shark took off after a little while, but from that moment on I payed close attention to what was going on all around me. The fear then started to settle and I started fishing in comfort again. The sun began to set and Greg and I were fishing side by side. It was my last day, so I tied on a big popper fly and went for the gold. I figured that either nothing was going to take the fly or something very large was going to take the fly. I casted a few times and then it happened and enormouns crash on the popper. Not once, Not twice, but three times. I continued stripping and popping the fly, but for some reason the fish never got hooked. He banged it around, but never actually ate it. So, I will never know what kind of fish it was, but it surely left me wonderind and will surely bring me back to that same spot on that remote key. I will get him next time.
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