Fall into Great Fishing

September sparks the beginning of Fall fishing.  For the Florida Keys this means high water on the flats, warm water and very aggressive fish!  This is one of my favorite times to fish.  Site fishing or blind casting artificial baits - such as weedless spoons, jerk baits, swim baits and top water plugs this time of year is SUPER productive - and very exciting.  There's nothing like watching a huge snook erupt on your lure in 2 feet of water - then scream out 20 yards of drag and jump.  Hang on - because the reds, big trout and baby tarpon are in the mix as well.  Many of my HOT SPOT locations can produce any of these three at any time. 

 

Yesterday I fished with a couple regulars - Roland and Mike.  Roland is from Germany and Mike lives here in the Keys.  Mike caught 2 backcountry slams (snook, redfish and tarpon), Roland caught one backcountry slam (trout, redfish, tarpon).  The bite was ON as we rolled our spoons and swim baits across the flats.....WHAM another nice snook.....POP it's a big trout....SLAM it's a drag screaming red.....SPLASH it's a baby tarpon!  We ended the trip with some live bait evening tarpon fishing around the bridges and landed 4 beautiful baby tarpon in about an hour.  HELLOOO is there any place on Earth with fishing like this???? 

 

The redfish bite has been great.  Good numbers of fish and most are in the "slot" (18"-27").  On the really good days we have been catching 30-40 reds.  

 

The trout continue to be abundant with average size fish (13"-19") with some gator size up to 24".  Most of the time we can produce over 80 fish on an average day.  

 

The snook are biting and the good days have produced 10-15 fish.  They are running anywhere from 22" up to 37" monsters.   

 

The baby tarpon are hit or miss during the day on the artificials - but evening fishing around the bridges is very productive.

 

The mangrove snapper are as abundant as ever.  You can catch as many as you want and catching a limit is usually a no-brainer.  My nickname for these fish is "bluegills on steroids".  They are very abundant, average size is 7"-14", they pull like they are 3 times their size and they are great tablefair. 

 

There are several other species - sharks, tripletail, jacks, ladyfish, grouper and a host of others that you can experience here in the beautiful Florida Keys.  So, stop watching all those awesome fishing shows on TV and experience it for yourself.  Fall into some great fishing this Fall in the Florida Keys.

 

Thanks,
Captain Steve Murray
Phone:  305 - 393 - 1641
Email:  stevemurray126@att.net
Website:  www.tarponheadquarters.com