My Love Affair with the Florida Keys
My love affair with The Fabulous Florida Keys began in 1992, when I was working for Daiwa. We’d been promised an exotic location for our annual main sales meeting if we beat our budget by 10% or better.
It was one of those years when things went right and we did it so in February we set off for a trip to Marathon, in what is known as the Middle Keys, roughly 100 miles south-west of Miami and 50 miles north-east of Key West.
The weather we had was unbelievable, record highs for three consecutive days in February, 84˚F or above.
Our party stayed in the lap of luxury at Faro Blanco Marina, caught some fish, and were even stood a drink by the winner of the Daytona 500, who stopped off at the restaurant we were eating in on his way to Key West.
Since then I’ve averaged one trip a year or better. I’ve not fished at Marathon, preferring to base myself at either Key West or Islamorada, forty miles nearer Miami than Marathon.
This year I stayed in Key West for the entire trip. Our party was Key’s veteran Roy Marlow of Pure Fishing, my long-time fishing buddy Bill Allen and Dave Thorpe of Dartford Angling Centre, famous for blistering his bum whilst playing a big blue marlin in Mauritius last winter. Dave had to leave us after the first week and Isle of Man travel agent Brian Kelly took his place
Just like 1992 we had sensational weather. In 2001 we had suffered the longest succession of ‘cold’ fronts we’d ever known, although cold isn’t really the word. The temperature only drops a few degrees but the weather systems bring wind, and that is not good for fishing The Keys…sailfish excepted. It was an all-time record spring for those last year.
2002 blessed us with high pressure, clear water, temperatures of 74-80˚F AT NIGHT and 85-88˚F during the day, with barely enough wind to ripple the water.
The main target for our trip is tarpon, ‘The Silver King’ as he is known down Florida way. These are literally giant herrings, but with added extras….such as the ability to breathe air. With any other fish, give it a gobful of air and it is usually close to landing time. The King has other ideas though, and a lazy roll on the surface often has the inexperienced tarpon angler growing in confidence of an early relief from aching muscles.
But no, off he will go again, on another sweat-inducing 200-yard (at least!) power run. Perhaps even more distressing is when you eventually catch up with the fish (the captains will go after them, with the angler stood in the bow) and see it maybe 10ft down even maximum pressure on 20lb gear doesn’t even slow it down or raise it one centimetre. Those big old pectoral fins act as stabilisers and the fish just swim away!
The method most often used in Key West is chumming, using shrimp boat ‘trash’, their by-catch, comprising small fish, crustaceans and of course damaged shrimp. This is cut into pieces about 2 inches or so, and fed back in the tide in a steady stream.
For hook bait a shiny mejorra (say it ‘mahorra’) is picked from the trash cooler…oh yes, everything has to be kept on ice…the tail is snipped off to prevent the bait spinning and a small cut made in the stomach to empty any air from the swim bladder. This is hooked through both lips on to a 5/0 or 6/0 hook, the favourite being either a Gamakatsu or Eagle Claw circle, or my favourite a 5/0 Owner SSW.
This is tied using either a ‘perfect loop’ knot, or a grinner, tied so the hook is in a one-inch loop. With the grinner, the loop closes onto the eye of the hook as soon as contact is made with a strike, the perfect loop stays open, but is a weaker knot.
The hook is tied to 10 ft or so of 60lb Fluorocarbon, which is in turn tied to a 3 ft double line, bimini knotted or spider hitched in the 20lb reel line, usually Ande Premium Clear.
No weights, except in very fast tides when anything from a AAA to the equivalent of 2SSG is nipped on to the leader about three feet from the hook.
The method is to run the bait back in the tide, as close to the speed of the current as possible, along with a handful of chum. Multiplier reels are best and they need to be free running with a GREAT drag. A good drag isn’t good enough. I prefer a lever drag, so my reels are Shimano TLD15s. I’ve tried others, but can’t find one better.
Some of the captains have gone on to Shimano Trinidads, which have superb star drags, but I prefer the confidence of using a lever drag which I know has been preset, using drag scales, to exactly the settings I want, which are 4lb strike and 9lb full.
The tide fairly races, despite a difference of less than 2ft on most tides, and with 20-35 ft of water to contend with, concentration has to be immense. The trick is to keep the left thumb as close to the spool as possible, barely brushing the line as it pours off, to prevent over runs. I let the line run over the forefinger of my right hand and watch the curve of the line where it enters the water. A bite is usually indicated by the line speeding up, very hard to detect for the unpracticed, or a slight ‘heavy’ feeling as the line runs over my finger.
When using circle hooks the trick is NOT to strike, but to wind normally, not too quick. This will set the hook in the lip on 95% of occasions.
With Owners I wind down and jab the hook in five or six times, usually followed by six feet-odd of silver leaving the water 50 –90 yards behind the boat.
When the fish leaps it is ESSENTIAL to ‘bow to the king’ and point the rod at the fish. Keeping the line tight will either pull the hook or break the line, virtually guaranteed.
The next hour or so is hard work. My longest tarpon battle was 3hrs 10mins in Key West Harbour, with a fish of maybe 150lbs on 12 test. We didn’t even see it for an hour and three quarters, and doubters Roy and Jack Simpson were muttering about it being a giant stingray. Then, from nowhere it started jumping all around the boat. It was, without question, the toughest fish I have ever hooked.
As well as tarpon we catch permit, a member of the jack family that takes off for the distant horizon at a rate of knots that belies its bream-like shape. They are my favourite quarry and are usually caught on live crabs, cast to visible fish.
Many huge permit get caught in the chum line whilst tarpon fishing too, and it’s well worth sorting a dead crab or a mantis shrimp from the trash and running it back. Tarpon will eat crabs and shrimp too.
Amongst other species caught tarpon fishing are various snapper, sharks and grouper, including a few small goliath grouper, formerly known as jewfish, which have been the subject of catch restrictions for four years. From being hard to find, they have boomed and every bit of the reef or wreck now has a resident giant goliath, which help themselves to anything you don’t wind up fast enough. And I mean ANYTHING. These critters grow to 700-800lbs and don’t take kindly to being hooked. Not that they do anything dramatic, they just swim down to their home and wait for you to lose patience and pull for the inevitable break-off!
A trip to the Gulf wrecks produces permit, more snapper, including the fantastic yellowtail snapper. Bring a few of those back, the captain will clean and fillet them and most of the restaurants will cook them in several ways, island blackened and Cozumel, with scallops and shrimp, are our favourites.
We had a treat this year when Chris Garcia took us for a night trip for mutton snapper on his boat Cool Water. We had muttons from 12-20lb, as well as a few amberjacks to 25lb, dropping livebaits down on rigs similar to those used here for pollack. If only pollack fought like muttons, and tasted like them too!
It was another great trip, and I’ll be back, God willing, for another go next year. We had just one disappointment. In 2000 Roy, Steve Barker and me took first place in the very prestigious Texaco Key West Classic. Roy and I failed last year but this year felt we had a great chance. Unfortunately we missed two sailfish chances on the first afternoon that cost us.
But saying that, Roy was second and I was third in tarpon releases in the Key West Kick-Off Tournament so the blow was softened. Roll on 2003!
Tight Lines
Keith
If you'd like to ask Keith a question about this trip you can Email him here - keitharthur@anglinglines.com
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