• Florida Keys
• Bahamas
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• Bonefish
• Tarpon
• Permit
• Snook
• Sharks
• Other Fishes

Key Largo is a unique destination for anglers to visit. Coined as the dive capital of the Florida Keys, it’s only sensible to believe the fishing is every bit as good. The pristine waters of the Atlantic side are blanketed with tons of patch reefs. These clusters of live rock and sponges provide sanctuary to thousands of tropical creatures including sea turtles, moray eels and a wide variety of fish. These reefs are as shallow 3 to 4 feet and can be seen clearly. These habitats are always full of migratory bait fish (Bally Hoo, Sardines, Pilchards, and Cigar Minnows) and even larger baits such as blue runners. Where you find schools of bait there are predators, Mutton Snapper, Black and Red grouper, Gag Grouper, Hogfish, Barracuda, Cero Mackerel and Cobia. These patches are exceptional areas when it’s too windy to venture offshore. Further offshore anglers will find deeper reefs and wrecks to fish around and over. If you go 6 to 7 miles offshore you can expect to find another variety of finned species. Sailfish, King Mackerel, Wahoo, Tuna and Mahi (Dolphin Fish) are just a few that are waiting to be caught. So whether you are live bait fishing during the winter months or trolling for Dolphin during the summer your chances of hooking a trophy are pretty good. There’s nothing like a dancing blue marlin to hook you for life.

Perhaps the blue water may be a little too much for you? Let me interest you in some light tackle Tarpon fishing. We have the luxury of staying close to home and still pursuing big game. Keys waters fill up with massive schools of silver kings better known as Tarpon. The beauty of these expeditions has to be sight fishing in 4 to 5 feet of water where you can see the mainland your entire trip. To be honest, Tarpon can well exceed 100 lbs and give you the fight of a life time. Explosive runs coupled with acrobatic displays keep bringing anglers back year after year. Plenty of fisherman hone there skills in salt water fly fishing during our summer Tarpon run. That’s not all you can find close to home either. Inshore, Bone fishing has become the absolute pinnacle of serious anglers. Miles of ideal flats stretch the Florida Keys inviting people to tangle with a ghost (Bone fish). These bullet shaped fish not only posses physical strength compared to few pound for pound, but an intense ability to camouflage themselves and disappear into thin water. This my friends makes hunting bones a psychological roller coaster ride. Sportsman lives for these opportunities. Wait there’s more. You can’t forget the last piece of the inshore puzzle. Permit a round bodied fish makes up the third species of the inshore slam. These tough fish can be spooky like bones too. So if by chance you are able to release a Tarpon, bonefish and a Permit all in the same trip you have accomplished by far one of the toughest achievements in saltwater fishing period.

Maybe you are the less serious angler wanting more scenery and less adrenaline. Experience a trip into Everglades National Park. Just miles from Key Largo is the boundary of our pristine Glades. These trips require you to bring a camera to document some of the most beautiful wild life you can only see here in south Florida. Gators and Crocodiles are just some of the creatures hiding in the interior. If you are a bird watcher than keep a keen eye out for Rosetta spoonbills, bald eagles and great Herons. I’m sure it’s possible you may even spy a species that’s unidentifiable. You really never know what you’ll come across. Fishing in the outback is wonderful too. Snook, Redfish and spotted sea trout are all fun to fish for. If you like light tackle angling in shallow water where you can see the fish sticking their backs out of the water; you must take a trip into the Everglades.

The blue-green waters of Florida Bay slap rhythmically at the bow of our flats skiff as we race along at 25 knots. Our guide, Captain Bob Baker, is taking us north out of Bud N' Mary's Sportfishing Marina in Islamorada, into the fishing grounds cradled between the Florida Keys and the southern tip of Florida. Baker slows the boat to point out the opaque green water we are crossing. Compared with the usually bathtub clear waters that we're used to fishing in, this milky green brew seems like a St. Patrick's day gimmick gone bad.

To the fisherman, it's no joke. They don't like water they can't spot fish in and the fish don't seem to like it either. Anglers travel from all over the country to sight cast for bonefish, permit, tarpon and redfish in Florida Bay.

The "green water," as the guides call it, is a remnant of Hurricane Wilma, which charged in from the southwest last October, rolling right into Florida Bay. The storm surge from Wilma whipped the Bay into a frenzy, scouring the bottom in some places, dumping tons of sand and sediment in others. But the fish and other wildlife quickly returned to this surprisingly resilient bay, leaving the fishermen to once again to adapt to new challenges, such as the green water.
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"Wilma did more damage to the Bay than Katrina," says Baker. "The flats had clumps of mangroves the size of cars just torn off the islands and scattered everywhere." The green water, a patch as much as 30 miles in diameter, moves around, shrinks and grows, but it hasn't left. Florida Bay has seen algal blooms before, but this recent one is much larger than has been seen in many years, according to Larry Brand, Professor of Marine Biology and Fisheries at the University of Miami.

"We see more algal blooms after fresh water runoff," says Brand. "After Wilma there was plenty of fresh water to dump into Florida Bay." In addition to the algae in the water, the storm scoured the bottom of the shallow bay, stirring up sediments which contribute to the opaque, turbid water. Brand says the main bloom starts in the north central Bay and extends to the west covering 500-1,000 square miles. "The guides are seeing turbid water and algae combined," says Brand.

Despite the lack of clear water, we did catch fish. Seatrout, Spanish mackerel, ladyfish and jacks all came to our hooks, leading to a day of slow paced, but steady action. Large ladyfish, sometimes called the poor man's tarpon, made multiple runs away from the boat against our light tackle, leaping and splashing in the effort. Baker and the other guides have adapted, knowing that where the fish were the day before may be covered in green water the next, and that they simply need to head elsewhere, just as the fish have. To old-time guides, it's just one of a long list of changes to way they fish. At least they have boats that can make long runs when necessary. That wasn't always the case.

Bill Curtis turned 81 this spring. He started fishing Florida and Biscayne Bays in 1948. He has been guiding other fishermen, mostly fly fishermen, in the back county since 1958.

"When I started there was one other guide in Miami," says Curtis. "We had so many bonefish then, you could fish blind for them." The boats of choice then--little flat bottomed wooden skiffs with 10-15 horsepower outboards, couldn't travel very far. "Evinrude didn't come out with a 25 horsepower engine until 1954," says Curtis. Guides worked seasonally. Customers only came down in winter months, so many guides worked as commercial crabbers or ran lobster boats the rest of the year. They would tow their flats skiffs behind the larger boats well out into the Bay and then pole or row the small boat to the flats. Even that was difficult.

"The first push poles were 12-foot-long wooden dowels like you would use in your closet," says Curtis. "Guides would put a flat piece on the end to push off of." The tactic of the day was for the guide to push or oar the boat from the back, while the angler stood in front and cast to the fish. But Curtis always found himself leaning or crouching to look around the angler while trying to spot fish. "On calm days I would stand on the motor, but as I got older, I needed more space." Curtis took his idea of a platform to pole from to Bob Hewes, a local boatbuilder in Miami. The first time Curtis showed up in Homosassa to try his new poling platform while chasing the big tarpon that show up there every May, the other guides laughed. "What you got there Curtis, a fish cleaning counter?" he recalls one saying. Soon after demonstrating the ease with which he could control the boat and an improved ability to spot fish from his higher vantage point, Curtis' poling platform became standard equipment on flats boats.

Other changes came to the Bay and to the fishermen as well. For one, their numbers increased as Miami went from a large town of around 200,000 people to a booming metropolis. After the Cuban Revolution, large swaths of the Everglades were drained to accommodate sugar cane fields, changing the flow of fresh water to Florida Bay. Until the late '80s water that had run off the sugar cane fields was pumped north to Lake Okeechobee, until it became so fouled that the U.S. government sued to prevent the practice. Instead, the nutrient rich water flowed south, into Florida Bay. Coincidentally, fishermen started reporting algal blooms.

Throughout this, flats fishing evolved as well. Wooden skiffs gave way to fiberglass. Fiberglass is now being replaced with boats made of Kevlar and carbon fiber so light they can run in inches of water. Push poles also changed with the times.

"The first fiberglass one I used was a pole vault pole," says Curtis. "Now it's a huge industry. The best push poles are graphite and if you don't have one you're second class."

But perhaps most importantly, the tackle changed as well. "When I started fishing," says Curtis, "we were using fresh water reels and they had terrible drags. We used bamboo rods. Fiberglass rods came out and they take so much more abuse and held up better. Today everything is graphite and boron.

"They have taken 200 plus pound tarpon on 20 pound tippets with the new gear," says Curtis. "The fish seem to average just as big as ever. We still have some pretty good bone fishing here by most standards and good permit and tarpon fishing as well." And he would like to see it stay that way.
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Curtis founded Bonefish Tarpon Unlimited (BTU), an organization that raises money to conduct tagging research on two favorite targets of fly fishermen. Recently, a tagged bonefish made news after it was caught 186 miles from where it was first tagged. The fish originally caught near Key Biscayne crossed the Gulf Stream, and was caught again nearly 11 months later off Andros in the Bahamas. Every tagged fish recovered offers researchers loads of new information and Curtis has high hopes for BTU. "We're going international," he says. "If I hadn't started that, they would have never known that a bonefish swam across the Gulf Stream."

Amid all the changes Curtis has not slowed down. His wife Adrienne says he has two speeds, full throttle and stop. He has fished Florida Bay's flats for 58 years and still heads out on the water several days a week.

"I'm the oldest fart on the flats right now," he cracks. "I'm still fishing but my poling days are over." He may have stopped poling, but he won't stop pushing the boundaries of a sport he has devoted his life to.

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