Hot, Humid, Mosquitos, and GREAT FISHING!!!
Pardon my lame-*** title, but that pretty much sums up my 6 days at the Keys.
Let me just say I really miss the fishing there and am irritated that I’m back in Socal. The fishing was awesome, food was all fresh seafood, bikinis out the door, and shorts everyday.
6/13: Monday
I arrived at Key Largo around 10am where I was welcomed by the GREAT! Florida weather. LOL, sunburn, sweat, and mosquito bites out the door here, but even with those the epic fishing made up for it! On this day the only fishing I did was outside my rental home where early on I was welcomed by a school of a hundred Jack Crevalle in the 2-8lb category. Those bastards made for some fun pulling on 6lb where I lost a bunch of smaller jigheads and jerkshads. Towards the later part of the day I managed to slay a few snappers and grunts on squid fished dropper loop style on 6lb.
Dumb puffer managed to steal my squid.
One of the larger Jacks I landed on 12lb on a circle hook and live pinfish.
A little more perspective.
A solid hard fighting Mangrove
Another.
These were the few picture worthy fish. I did manage to get a 3lb jack to shore on 4lb and the most noodle-like trout rod one could ever get his hands on. That fight was one hell of a fight! No pic though cause the damn this cut my line when I managed to get a hand on it.
6/14: Tuesday
Woke up on this day to find that the local fauna really loves me; my legs looked like a pizza from the damn mosquito bites. I only fished in the morning and evening. In the morning I managed to get connected with a few Jacks on Pinfish, more snappers and grunts, and more tanning from the sun. In the evening I finally saw some epic boils from the huge schools of tarpon busting on pinfish inside the channel connecting Largo Sound and Blackwater Sound. The fish were in the 15lb-30lb+ category so it was pretty damn awesome to see this. I managed to get two hook ups on circle hooks and Pinfish but got busted off both times either due to line breakage when the fish jumped or ran. So, sorry guys no vid of me slaying a tarpon on 6lb.
A baby Gag caught right outside the house where I stayed at. It ate a 5” Pinfish sitting on the bottom.
Same Gag CPR’d.
Took a trip out to Islamorada to feed the Tarpon and Jacks, it was rather fun feeding 50lb+ Tarpons and those ravenous Jacks.
Tarpon at Islamorada.
More Tarpon
Big boy
6/15: Wednesday
On this day my family and I took a guide trip out on a Pontoon to do some reef fishing on the Atlantic side. I got to say I’ve never been 6 miles out on a Pontoon it was pretty interesting. Fished anywhere from 10’ to 50’ on light stuff, 6lb test, 12lb, and 15lb. Fished dropper loop, C-rig, and my favorite reaction baits. Overall we did pretty well had solid action by Socal standards. Never went less than 5min without a hook-up. Fish caught: A LOT of grunts, a tilefish, Wrasses, Blue Runners, Sierras, Groupers, and some other crap I could not I.D. We got rocked a lot by the groupers or busted off due to our all might line class of 6lb mono. As for myself I only got rocked once, but this was solid grouper a legal one fosho’. The limelight of this trip was the ridiculous reaction strike fishing that I rarely get to do back home. It’s funny, the fish would only respond to extremely fast and violent retrieves and not a more natural one. Any who, great times and a wicked tan I was brown as hell after this day.
Here’s Captain Jean with a Sargent Major. Don’t worry the little thing swam off fine.
A lot of short Yellowtails.
Grouper?!?! Why you have to be so small?!?!
A tasty Sierra that turned into fish tacos.
This fat Wrasse had some teeth on it.
Blue Runner that went back into the drink. This fish is very similar to the yellowtails back home had a blast catching them on poppers, ripbaits, etc.
My cousin’s sheepshead.
Tasty but still too short!!!
And another Blue Runner.
6/16: Thursday
Took a long drive down to Key West did the glass bottom boat thing, had a nice Key Lime pie, and did a little more fishing in the evening. Same ol’ Snappers and Grunts nothing special so no pics.
6/17: Friday
Did some Yakin’ at Pennekamp.
The Terrain
My family eating my aquatic dust
6/18: Saturday, Last fishing day
Kicked back a bit this day only fished the evening this day, but the worst part was that I figured out where all the fish were and only had a few hours to slay them. Pinfish were plentiful so plentiful that my cousin and I managed to catch over 100 pieces in and hour on squid. On this day I caught several more decent snappers, grunts, and one fish that reminds me of a Barred Sand Bass.
A grunt. What kind is it?
The Sea bass?
The local ants were huge! I turned my back for 2 mins and this is what I found.
More ants
Random stuff
For you food lovers….
Dorado sandwich
Huge piece of Dorado. The sauce was the bomb!
Conch chowder
Seafood, mmm….
Gotta have um’
Crab legs!
Oysters.
I don’t know about this one.
So that was my perspective of my trip to the Keys. It was fun, the food, was great, I already miss it, and you locals have it made. One last thing, I found it a little funny that the local tackle shops did not sell licenses I had to go to K-mart or Wal-mart for it. Any who, that’s what happens when everything becomes tied to technology.
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Originally Posted by bassjedi
