Key West Fishing at 30 Knots

March is for die-hard Key West fishing fans only. This March it's blown average of 20 knots most weeks, making huge rolling waves out there on the reef. Beyond the reef, well you're taking your life in your own hands if you go out there in a fishing boat.
Luckily, there is one type of Key West fishing that's possible on any day, no matter what the weather has thrown our way. It's on White Street Pier.
Now if you're used to fishing in a boat and in deeper water, this is going to be a big disappointment for you. But for people on vacation or fishing addicts who just have to fish but can't take the skiff out in 25 knots, we have White Street Pier. You can see here how horrible the Key West weather is on this particular day in late March:
The sky is gray and the water is brown from days of high winds from the south. But these folks have figured out that none of this matters to the fish below White Street Pier.

Key West Barracuda Fishing

Key West barracuda fishing is, believe it or not, quite popular and exciting. Although most Key Westers don't eat barracuda, they are considered a pretty good fighting fish, and they make the best bait if you're going to go shark fishing later. For first-timers to Key West game fishing, hooking a barracuda is going to be the hilight of the day. Key West barracuda fishing is fast and easy, since there are so many of them in the waters around this island. They can be found in shallow water, on the reef, and in deeper water just beyond the reef. They can get quite large, like five or six feet long, too. And they are strong fighters! Once reeled in, you will see that their teeth are very impressive- large, plentiful, and sharp! Makes a great picture to impress the folks back home.

Barracudas have a reputation that is not quite warranted. Most people, when they hear that you have been Key West barracuda fishing, will have some sort of danger alert pop up in their minds. They will be concerned that perhaps you were in danger while on vacation in Key West. And if you go snorkeling you will almost definitely see barracuda. Folks back home will be shocked! That's because most people know about barracuda only from some exaggerated notion from a movie.

Let's set the record straight. Barracudas don't attack people. They attack the fish that people catch, whether it be on hook and like fishing or spearfishing. But barracuda are afraid of people. They lurk around boats and try to steal hooked fish, but they aren't waiting to ambush actual people!

Barracuda also hang out on the coral reef, which is why Key West reef fishing is sort of popular. Some captains will incorporate barracuda fishing into the first part of a day of fishing, as a way of catching bait. They make great bait because barracuda is a very bloody fish and they are easy to find and catch. Ask you captain about it, try it and you'll see why barracuda fishing in Key West is so much fun!

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Tarpon Fishing in Key West

Tarpon fishing is usually great near Key West. We anchor up there at night and jump a few all spring. But early September, I guess they are mostly gone, or it was because the tide was coming in. We jumped one tarpon and everything else we caught was nurse sharks. Or maybe the same nurse shark over and over. Here's Cal, a spearo buddy, on his first time tarpon fishing. He was psyched to catch a nurse shark because he wanted to eat it. But captain Ben wasn't into it so it was no go. Cal did manage to lift the nurse shark out of the water, before it flipped out and wrenched itself out of his hands and into the water. This is really a whole different take on Key West flats fishing.

Key West Boat Rentals

If you are interested Key West boat rentals, then be prepared to pay substantially more than anywhere outside of Key West. For a 16 foot skiff, get ready to shell out $300 for a full day. For a two hour jaunt to see the Key West sunset, it'll cost you $200 plus 7% tax if you want to rent your own boat. For a 20 foot center console Angler, it's $400 for the whole day. Compare this to elsewhere in the Florida Keys, outside of Key West, it's $255 for a 20 foot center console. Keep in mind, that even with high prices for Key West rentals, you still probably won't get a nice GPS system like the screen on the boat in this picture.

Basically, like everything else, it costs more in Key West. Anyway, if you're vacationing in Key West, what choice do you have? You can pay for convenience or you can drive "up the Keys" for a lower rate. Marathon, 50 miles away, has a few cheaper boat rental places. Big Pine Key, 30 miles away, has a boat rental company that will deliver the boat to you. You can rent anything from a 12 foot Jon boat for $100 bucks a day to a 30 foot Sea Ray, $650 bucks a day.

Renting a boat out of Big Pine Key also means you'll be close to Looe Key Sanctuary when you go out. That means extraordinary snorkeling and scuba diving. However, no fishing because it's a sanctuary. Don't worry, because the Florida Keys have some of the best sportfishing in the world and the sanctuaries only eliminate a small portion of fishing opportunities.

Cudas OK

I first came to the Florida Keys in Winter of 2002, so I'm relatively new to the whole Keys scene. My boyfriend and I both hate winters in upstate New York, so we started visiting here every chance we got. One winter season we came down three times, once we'd discovered sportfishing. I have to say that flying down to the Keys and going out fishing with a good charter fishing guide is one of the best vacations you could ever have. We went out with a variety of captains, both backcountry and offshore, and the first one we happened to find turned out to be one of the best. We found his business card in a tackle shop and next day bundled up and went out on his flats boat. It was freezing, but we had the time of our life on that gray day. Our guide later became one of our web design clients, and his family hosted us for a lobster dinner once when we came down on vacation. Really a nice time.

My boyfriend likes to get big fish, and of course when you're from the north, who can imagine anything more exciting than catching a shark. Our guide had a flats boat, so really the biggest fish he could promise us was a shark. The first step was to catch some bait: barracuda, which in itself sounded pretty dangerous and exciting. We did this by trolling some whistling lures- I dont' know what you call them- they are bright orange and pink skinny rubber tubes with hooks out one end. Supposedly they whistle in the water and attract the barracuda. We dragged the pretty lures through the water until the poles bent way down and something was on the hook. My BF grabbed the pole and hung on-wow! Then the other pole did the same thing and it was my turn. Man, it was tough and I thought maybe we'd caught a shark by trolling (I didn't know anything about how sharks hunt at at point, so I didn't know this was pretty much impossible). It felt so heavy and it was all I could do to hold onto the pole. How would I ever reel it in? We fought and it took me a while, but after a few minutes we both reeled in gigantic barracuda (or so the guide told us after he saw the fish...I had no idea what they looked like then, those early days of my fishing career).

I was pretty impressed with the barracuda fishing, and I remember thinking that was pretty exciting all by itself. Shark fishing must be amazing if this was just the bait. I was thrilled. Now, five years later and many many fishing trips later, I have learned that most fishermen (oops-anglers, I mean) regard the barracuda as something undesirable, not even really a fish worth catching, almost an embarrassment that it should happen to get hooked. Nobody eats them, although some guides tell me Cubans eat them. There's that ciguatera disease, which you can get from eating the larger cudas. Well, I don't need to eat them but I still love the barracuda. See how happy I was after catching my first big fish? You always remember your first with fondness, and that was my first (see picture). Plus, when you go snorkeling, they hang near you so you can study them up close, and they eye you and creep you out a little, if they're big. That's exciting, too. Sometimes we hate the cudas when they snatch our yellowtail as we reel them in, hoping for a snapper dinner. But we always laugh at their resourcefulness and the nerve they have, stealing our dinner, and really down deep, we respect the cuda. Cuda OK.