Florida Keys - Tarpon Bonefish and Permit!

McCall Angler is exploring the Florida Keys area in search of outfitting oportunities for the 2011 season. March 2009 Robert Monroe and Matt Meyer set out to explore the Keys. This is a run down of our month.

We arrived in Island Marada the last week of February. With some help from Caribee Boat Sales, Mccall Angler now owns a Maverick HPX flats skiff. This is the key to exploring the waters of the area. The next day we arrived on Big Pine Key and started to organize equipment and charts.

With recommendations from our friend, Carter Andrews, we chose an area to begin our fishing. The area we chose was on the far outside north west of Big Pine. The problem with this area is that it is exposed to the rough seas of the gulf. For the first two weeks we chose to not run out to this area with strong 20 to 30 knot winds out of the north east. These winds are not only affecting vision and travel, the north east winds also bring water temps in the low sixties. Not an acceptable water temp for most of your flats species. Fortunately the NE only lasted a few days and moved on to an E and south east for the rest of the month. This allowed our water temps to move back up into the 70's. The strength of the wind continued but at least the fish where starting to move back up onto the flats during the rising tide or push. The unfortunate part is that most flats species use the tides as a means of easy travel onto the flats, we were moving into a neap tide which means very little movement of the tide. We spent this time fishing the basins and flats to the east that had good drops on the edge of the flats. The fish would still move up on the edges with the slight movement.

When the weather and tides gave us the oportunity we ran to the outside. When we arrived on the outside edge it was easy to see why this is the area Carter recommended. Great visibility good strong tide flows and 30 foot deep edges for fish to slide off during low tides. The weather only allowed us to fish this area for three days. It was great, spectacular shots at permit, tarpon and large sharks.
We look forward to learning this area. The 2010 season I will spend three months furthering my knowledge of this area in hopes of offering guided trips to all of our outstanding customers.

We will keep you updated on our progress!
Best regards,

Robert Monroe
McCall Angler