Florida Keys Fishing By Foot

The Florida Keys have something to offer every fisherman, including the shore-bound angler.

With a winter’s worth of weekend sportsman’s shows behind me, by March I was ready to get serious about fishing once again. The only problem was, the striped bass were not as ready to start the season as I was. I’ve found freshwater fishing to be a great placeholder in the springtime as I wait for stripers and blues to return to the surf, but catching stocked trout or sluggish largemouth bass is no replacement for doing battle with a drag-ripping saltwater gamefish. I had to jumpstart my saltwater season somehow, and one place where I’d always been eager to test out my shore-bound fishing skills was the Florida Keys.

The Keys are dripping with shore-fishing opportunity, from the miles of wade-able flats located a stone’s throw from the Overseas Highway to the 42 bridges connecting the individual keys. I was particularly excited about the latter as I’d cut my teeth as a striper fisherman from atop the bridges spanning various New Jersey inlets and backwaters.

I pulled together a quick plan, booked a reasonably priced flight, made a reservation for a rental car and just went. Lucky for me, my Uncle Cal was vacationing in Marathon that week and had a spare bed for me to crash on. Cal had even booked a charter for two days to do some reef and offshore fishing, which would serve as a nice contingency plan in case I was unable to find fish on dry land.

When I arrived in Miami, I was so eager to get a line in the water, I began rigging my rods as I waited for the E-Z Rent-A-Car attendant to pull around my “mid-size” sedan. After spending about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to drop down the backseat to accommodate my rods, I was on my way, driving beyond the tall Miami hotels and onto the Overseas Highway.

As I made my way through the Upper Keys, I pulled into every tackle shop I passed, buying a lure or two and looking for some tips and tricks. To my great surprise, every shop was overwhelmingly unhelpful regarding the shore-based fishing I hoped to do. Either they suggested I get some shrimp and bottom-fish for a mixed bag of snappers, grunts and other small tropical fishes, or they flat out told me they had no idea. Perhaps the shop owners were more tight-lipped than the surfcasters back home, or maybe they were just unaware of the fishing opportunities that exist in their own backyards.

With the wind taken out of my sails a bit, I made my way down to Islamorada and made the obligatory stop at Bud n’ Mary’s Marina, where I hoped to catch a glimpse of the famous “pet” tarpon that mill around the boat docks. When I walked to the water’s edge, I could hardly believe my eyes. There were dozens of 30- to 100-pound tarpon just hanging out there, hoping for free handouts from tourists. After seeing that there were indeed tarpon within reach of shore, I perked right back up, and as the sun set, I prepared for my first night of Florida Keys fishing.

I continued driving from Islamorada south to the 7 Mile Bridge, stopping at each overpass and scouting the waters, trying to determine where I wanted to start my evening’s fishing. I couldn’t believe that of every bridge I passed, only one had a light hanging over the water and making those sharp shadow lines that marine predators love to use as ambush points. The lighted bridge spanned Vaca Cut, and that is where I began my fishing.

Fishing from atop this particular bridge was not allowed, but it was perfectly fine to fish underneath it. Not sure exactly what I’d encounter under the bridge, I rigged up my 7-foot G. Loomis travel spinning rod and Shimano Saros with a 30-pound-test fluorocarbon leader and a Sebile Stick Shadd. I had stocked a backpack with Plano boxes filled with every lure I thought might work, from bucktail jigs to topwater poppers.

The first sign of life I found under the Vaca Cut Bridge was a palmetto bug (Keys-speak for cockroach) the size of a Chihuahua. Thoroughly wishing I’d worn something other than sandals, I began casting in the light cast from the streetlamp above. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something roll just in front of the shadow line. I ceased casting and peered at the dark water. Sure enough, under the bridge, several dark shapes held their position in the current, just below the surface. I flipped the Stick Shadd into the shadows and began working it back to me. Immediately, the dark shapes descended on the lure, eyeing it closely until I was about to lift it from the water when the shape closest to the plug lunged at it and a prehistoric-looking mouth shattered the glass-calm waters. Tarpon!

The fish missed the plug, so I quickly repeated the same cast as before, determined to get my first tarpon. Once again, I had follows, but none of the tarpon committed. This continued for a couple casts until soon, I was getting no interest from the fish at all.

I knew I had to make a lure and a presentation change, but to what? Though striped bass and tarpon aren’t even remotely related – tarpon are actually more closely related to eels than bass – these estimated 30- to 60-pound fish were sure acting just like stripers do under a bridge. So, I tapped into my striper fishing experience and figured that perhaps, like bass, tarpon would be more likely to hit a lure moving with the current than one moving against it. For this I would need a jig. As far as I could tell, the only bait present was the occasional shrimp drifting by, so I rigged up a ½-ounce jighead with a stout hook and threaded onto that a Berkley Gulp 3-inch shrimp. I cast the bait upcurrent just a bit and kept the line tight, jigging every two or three turns of the reel handle. The instant the bait crossed the shadow line, I felt a sharp rap on the rod tip and I set the hook. After feeling some heavy headshakes, a 3-foot tarpon erupted from the water under the bridge, and before I could fully grasp that I’d hooked my first tarpon, the jig came sling-shotting back at me, whizzing just over my left shoulder.

I’d heard tarpon had bony mouths, so on my next hit, I decided I would set the hook a few times to make sure the point made it through the fish’s hard lips. I didn’t have to wait long for that next hit – it came on the following cast. I swept the rod down to the right three or four times hoping to drive the hook home. When another, larger tarpon came blasting out of the water and the hook held, I was confident that as long as I didn’t break the line, the fish was mine. Not breaking the line was going to be an immense challenge on its own. The tarpon did its best big striped bass imitation and made a beeline for the bridge pilings. I palmed the spool and the fish changed its course, peppering in a few breathtaking jumps. The fish launched its entire body out of the water, putting itself at eye level with me, and twisted and shook until the loud reentry.

I inched the tarpon closer and closer until finally I got a grip on its lower lip. At 30 pounds, the locals would’ve called it a “baby,” but I didn’t care. The fight was incredible and after reviving the fish, I went on to hook six more tarpon that night, though I only landed two more. Most threw the hook on their first or second jump. It was a great start to the trip, and to my great amazement, not another shore fisherman was in sight.

Throughout the trip, the only fishermen I saw at night were using gigantic conventional reels and telephone-pole stiff rods in hopes that a shark would find their bait (which usually consisted of a large jack or stingray). No one seemed interested in catching these baby tarpon.

During the days, I continued to fish jigs from and around the bridges. My most common catch in the daytime was mangrove snappers. These spirited fighters ranged from 1 to 3 pounds and were a blast. Mixing in with the snappers were various species of grouper, including a baby 6-pound Goliath grouper, houndfish and a jack crevalle. I did try bait a few times, and in the keys, the top baits are either live shrimp or small, live blue crabs. I stuck to shrimp, since the crabs were expensive at a couple bucks a pop, and most fishermen used them for flats or permit fishing anyhow. It was difficult to keep a bait in the water with the shrimp. Small snappers, groupers, spadefish and lookdowns began attacking the bait as soon as it hit bottom. The most memorable catch on the shrimp was a 3-foot bonnethead shark that my cousin Liam and I teamed up to catch from the bridge at Channel 5. After dark, the lighted bridge at Vaca Cut held tarpon every night, but my best night fishing took place at 7-Mile Bridge.

While you can’t fish on the actual 7-Mile Bridge, portions of the old bridge have been left up and were converted into fishing piers. On my last night, with a bright full moon, I hoped to find well-defined shadow lines even on the unlit bridges. When I walked up to the 7-Mile Bridge Pier, I saw the shadow lines I was looking for and was excited about my chances. Though Vaca Cut held a good number of baby tarpon, I thought the larger channels between the Keys would hold even more and bigger tarpon. As I walked up on the bridge, the sound of dozens of tarpon slurping bait off the surface told me I was right. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust, but when they did, I could easily make out the shapes of tarpon sitting in the shadow line directly beneath me. I could actually pick which tarpon I wanted to drift my jig to!

As I was trying to decide which tarpon to pitch the lure to, the fish scattered. I was cursing myself, thinking I had cast a shadow and spooked the fish, when a huge fish, twice as big as any of the tarpon that were there previously, set up shop under the bridge. My first thought was “shark,” but when a needlefish swam by with the current and the fish rolled on its side and ate the bait on the surface with a loud whoosh, I could clearly see it. A tarpon. A 100-pounder, probably more, right there beneath my feet, and in a feeding mood. While my rod and reel had managed to land some tarpon in the 15- to 40-pound range, hooking this giant would have been an exercise in futility. I moved down the bridge and found a cluster of smaller fish. I had a take on my first cast and fought the tarpon as I worked my way back to shore, where I would land the fish. This sight-fishing continued through the tide, and I lost count of the number of tarpon I hooked, managing to land seven of them. The highlight of my night was the 10-pound snook that was mixed in with the tarpon. It was my biggest snook ever, and I saw why Floridian fishermen go as crazy over these “linesiders” as we do over ours.

By the time I got back to the Northeast, the stripers were steadily making their way up the coast and the first reports of big blues had already trickled in. The Keys in the early spring was a great way to get a head start on the fishing season, and overall, not a very expensive trip, especially if you do a little research before booking your flight, room and rental car. I can’t wait to get back.