July is rolling on and the weather is hot, but the good thing is so is the fishing! We’ve been running into the key largo backcountry and fishing the everglades most days. Tarpon have been the main target, our summer time fishery can often be just as much action as ‘prime time’ during the spring (March – May). Many of these fish are small in size but often still up to 60 or 80 lbs. On the slightly lighter tackle we use you get just as good of a fight as you would with a big girl, though you can catch most of them in 20 minutes or less which is nice especially in the heat! This fishing can be good all the way into the Fall until things really start to cool off. Other fish we’ve been targeting have been snook and a handful of redfish. Pilchards have been catchable most days, and when they are not pinfish can be caught instead. With the pilchards you can usually just about count on being able to find a few snook, and on a good day you can get into a lot of them. The redfish have been much fewer and farther in between, at least in the areas I can fish as I can’t get up in the super skinny water that the tiny microskiffs do. In the bays trout and snapper action has been steady, and there have been a few tripletail and permit out in the gulf too which is a good option if your looking for something different. The calm weather of summer leaves the water very nice and the fish patterns are much more predictable. If you are going to be down in the Key Largo area drop me a line, fishing the next several months can be very good and it is also our off season for business so you often have the fishing grounds all to yourself.
