Bonefish
Sorry for the lack of reports recently, were just starting to get back to normal since Hurricane Irma. Thank you to all my clients who made it down to fish in October, I know some people had to change hotels and some restaurants were not fully operational, but your business means everything to this little island. If anyone is hesitant to visit Key West after the storm, don't be. We are ready for the holiday season and the fishing has been excellent. The wind has started blowing from the north now and the tunas have been biting offshore. We were able to get out one evening earlier this week and we caught a few blackfin tunas, plus a couple dolphin. The sailfish started showing up too and hopefully we get a consistent bite throughout the winter. Also the wahoo fishing should be getting good around the December and January full moons, if anyone has interest in live bait fishing for wahoo, that would be a great time.
Tarpon
We did a lot of backcountry fishing October, once the water started clearing up after the storm, the fishing turned on in the shallows. There were plenty of schools of small tarpon around. They were chasing bait around the mangroves. We did a lot fishing for them with live pilchards, but you can cast artificial lures and flies at them as well. The bonefishing was also great after the storm, we saw a lot of big schools of bonefish pushing around the flats. Now that the weather is starting to cool down, we have seen less bonefish and we are starting to do more barracuda fishing on the flats. Winter is a great time target barracudas in the backcountry; they like the cooler water temperature. The barracudas have a super aggressive bite, the fight well and they will jump too. They are an awesome predator to target in shallow water with either light spinning gear or with a fly rod.
Snook