Fishing in Key West

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Thursday, February 19th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed

The Florida Keys stretch some 100 miles out into the ocean and have water all around them and there’s fish everywhere. Several of the Keys have a huge reputation for top class fishing but Key West wins the prize as the top spot simply for the vast variety of fish that inhabit the oceans around the island. Fishing in Key West, Florida attracts fishermen from around the world and for very good reasons.

The inshore fishing around Key West includes tarpon fishing, permit or sharks, the reef offers snapper and grouper and offshore there’s a whole host of species including dolphin, sailfish, wahoo, kingfish, tuna and cobia. With the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other, there’s no excuse for having a poor day’s fishing whatever the weather conditions.

Although there are a number of offshore boats working out of Key West, our primary interest is light tackle fishing. If you’re not a keen angler you’ll be wondering what we are referring to, so we’ll begin with a quick explanation. The offshore boats tend to be bigger with a more luxurious setup such as a large air conditioned lounge and full bathrooms. They motor around the ocean towing a number of lures behind the boat and when a fish is hooked the lucky angler sits in a fighting chair to bring the hooked fish to the boat. A light tackle boat is somewhat smaller, being somewhere around 26 – 30 ft long, with an open deck and no creature comforts such as bunks or saloons. Typically powered by a pair of powerful outboard motors, they roar around at impressive speeds which allows them to reach fishing spots many miles from the harbor at Key West. Each angler on board has a rod and reel, and when a fish bites it is up to the angler to strike and reel in the fish unaided. The offshore boats will normally fish in at least 200 ft of water whereas the light tackle boats are at home fishing anything between 20 feet deep for sharks around the harbour to two or three hundred feet deep offshore whilst searching for dolphin, wahoo or sailfish.

You don’t need to be an experienced angler to go out on a light tackle boat, the captains enjoy nothing better than seeing someone catch their very first fish. All of the captains are most helpful and they’ll all do their best to ensure that you have a great fishing experience, and hopefully a fish or two to take home with you or have prepared at one of the local seafood restaurants. All of the light tackle boats have an excellent selection of top quality tackle for anyone that doesn’t have their own tackle. All you need to take with you for a great day’s fishing is sunscreen, sunglasses a hat and your food and drink for the day.

Planned future articles will describe in greater detail a day fishing for tarpon, tuna, sailfish or grouper, but for the time being we’d suggest that you to book a trip and catch some of our plentiful fish.

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