Tarpon fishing has been in full swing and this past March was one of the best March I have seen in a long time!!!  April has been very good with first half fairly calm and the second half with some wind that the anglers has had to deal with, but the Tarpon have been eating the flies well!!!  May is and has always just been Tarpon madness and it should not be any different this May!!!  I do have just a couple of days open in May and some in June if anyone is looking to get on some of these Tarpon!!!

The last two weeks have been off the chain for Bonefish, Big Tarpon, and Permit!!  With all the warm weather we have been having for the month of Feb. the flats have been crawling with fish..  The Tarpon have been laid up in all of their normal basins and it has been hard to fish for any other fish due to so many Tarpon around over the last couple of days!!!  These fish are big and hungry with very little pressure on them right now which means some banner days if the weather holds out!!!  A small cold front will be on us Wed but the temp are still going to stay above the mid 70's which is not enough of a cold front to run them out of here!!!  I have some days open in April and also some days open in June but they will not last long,  if you are looking to get in on some of the best fly fishing months in the Florida keys for Tarpon you better call soon!!!

The weather has been perfect which has the fish eating anything that is in front of them on the flats!!!!  Tarpon, permit, and bones have been on fire and if the next front stays fairly warm and not as cold as the past fronts, the fishing will remain on fire!!!  Today Scott Kolpin and I went 6 for 9 on permit and caught one bone!!!!  Found a couple of laid up tarpon that did not work out for us for the slam, but oh well still a bad ass day on the water!!!!!!!

 

The weather for the last 5 days have been on a warming trend which has brought the water temps up and along with that comes the fish!!!  The Permit and Bonefish has been very productive, but the big story is the Bonefish!!!!  Last Jan. & Feb. you would have been hard pressed to find a Bone anywhere in the keys due to the very cold temps we had, but this year the temps have been on the normal side and the bones are back to normal for the winter time pattern!!!!!  This time of year I look for bones in deeper basins on both the incoming and outgoing tides.  Look for the fish to be in 3-6ft of water in large schools moving up and down the current searching for food!!!  Since the fish are in deeper water and usually on darker bottom, you will have a hard time seeing the fish..  Instead of looking for a fish, I look for signs of fish.  I look for little puffs of mud which is the biggest indication that bones are around.  Once I find the puffs, I then look for darker shades of color on the bottom.  The bones this time of year will be in large schools and the school will have an appearance of a dark patch of grass which in this case is not grass but the school of fish slowly moving along the bottom!!  Simply cast your bait or fly way out in front of that dark patch and let it sit.  Once the dark patch is close to your bait simply give it a small twitch, then let the fish do the rest..  If you can not see the dark patch but you are seeing the puffs of mud cast your bait way out in front of the last puff that you have seen then do the same as stated before!!!  Remember that the puffs of mud you see is where the fish was, but not where they are now.  Bones will filter mud out through their gills as they grub food off the bottom and then begin to move on to find their next meal.  By the time you see the puffs the bones most likely moved 5-8ft ahead of the puff.  Take your time and try not to push them to hard and you will start to see a puzzle that is coming together in front of you, once this happens you will notice that you can stay with these schools for a long time and pick away at them...

Fished the reef today on a buddy's boat and I had a blast!!  Plenty of Snappers, Groupers and we also caught 2 Sailfish..  Most of my time is spent on the flats in shallow water, so it was nice to have a change in pace today..  Sorry I did not even bring a camera so pics. 

The weather is going to be very nice to us this Saturday!!!  Wind less the 10mph just prior to another Cold front should get the fish up on the flats for a quick meal!!  I would lay money down that the permit fishing is going to be outstanding as soon as this wind lays down..