KeyWest Fishing Report - March 1, 2006

KEY WEST – Key West fishing this week certainly had some fabulous highlights. Our weather was perfect there for about a week with calm winds and clear blue skies. Those who know fishing, especially in saltwater, know that fronts and changing weather patterns effect the fishing, not always shutting it down but simply changing it. Our last weekend front brought slightly cooler temperatures into the area but it is quickly warming up and really starting to feel like spring in the Lower Keys.

I’ve heard many great tales of fishing on the flats this week from our local flats captains. Permit tailing on the flats, tarpon on the deeper flats, many of them caught on fly. This is one of the best times for permit here in the Lower Keys. They feed heavily on the flats for small blue crabs and shrimp and to any fly fisherman, this is one of the best times to try for a permit on a fly. There has always been a question of whether a permit is a reef and wreck fish, or a flats fish. They spend time in both places. A permit seems to almost be like a criminal on the flats, he’s just there to steal a few crustaceans and then return to deeper water. This past week has had some pretty calm days making it difficult to get close enough to a tailing permit to make a decent cast. Hundreds of anglers travel here religiously to fish for permit, many of them have caught one, and some are still looking for their shot at glory. The late Del Brown caught over 500 permit on fly. It’s almost unimaginable to catch so many permit on fly since its taken 3 years of practice, fly casting in the driveway, to get to the point where I could actually get the fly to the permit without scaring the living daylights out of him. I think your first permit should be compared sometimes to getting a hole-in-one on a par three.

Permit can be found predominantly cruising the flats in March and many larger permit, some up to 40- pounds can be found in Key West Harbor mixed in with the seasonal tarpon and possibly a few cobia. Permit in the Harbor are often down deep and adding a couple split shots to your crab bait when drifting back in the current will get the bait down far enough to get a good bite.
Several tarpon guides say this time of the year is perfect for early tarpon fishing providing the water temperature is warm enough. I caught up with one of the go to guides for tarpon today, Captain Gary Maconi on the Fishin’ Magician out of Murray Marina. To give you any idea of how much Maconi loves tarpon, his other vessel is named “Megalops Atlanticus,” which is the scientific name for tarpon. I asked Gary if he thought it was going to be a good day for tarpon. He replied, “The temperature is a little lower than I’d expect, it dropped 8 degrees since yesterday, but I’ve caught them in this temperature water.” As with any fishing scenario anywhere in the world, it fluctuates with warm and cool fronts, moon phases, tides and, of course, wind direction. I talked to Maconi later in the day and his angler got one tarpon. Hooking a tarpon in Key West Harbor is pretty fun and not as easy as you think. As the captain puts some cut bait chum in the water you drift your bait back at the same speed as the current. The bait is moving so fast that you may only feel a slight speed up in the line, that’s when you lock it up and set the hook as hard as you can. A tarpon’s mouth is very much like a cinder block, difficult to set a hook and have it stay put while the fish makes several aerobatic jumps.
Several boats braved the small craft warnings and higher than normal winds early this week to do some reef fishing. Despite the cooler temps the cero mackerel and king mackerel were still biting strong. Captain Craig Eubanks on the Mr. Z out of A&B Marina explained that the fishing was still a bit slow but they managed to get a few nice yellowtail and some cero mackerel and barracuda on the reef during a half day charter. Eubanks has been fishing out of Key West for nearly 15 years.

This week Key West welcomes the SKA Yamaha Professional Kingfish Tour. The tournament headquarters will be at Murray Marina on Stock Island where the rules allow these top pro teams to weigh in one kingfish per day. This leg of the tour is one in 5 of the tour series. SKA tabulates the results from all these events and the team with the best aggregate earns the title “Top Angler of the Year.”

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