trout – Key Largo Fishing Report

3/22/13 Good inshore fishing Key Largo

Had another great day here inshore fishing key largo in the backcountry and everglades national park. We left out early and headed west where there have been lots of big fish showing up from the gulf of mexico. In the bays we started out targeting ladyfish and trout. Lots of fun on light spin gear, watching the acrobatic ladyfish jump and twist trying to throw the hook. We saved these girls for bait for the big boys later. We caught plenty of nice big trout too, the big spring time trout are here now and showing up in the usual spring/summer areas in the bay. Gulps or live shrimp work fine, or you can try artificial if it is your fancy! Key Largo trout fishing should continue to be a good bet. After we had our fill of this, we set up in a nearby channel for tarpon and other big fish. Lots of tarpon rolling and busting were seen, and within a few minutes we had one soar out of the water attached to the end of our big spinning rod – success! My angler fought the fish for a good 25 minutes, and we landed a nice 100 lb fish. After this we had a mystery bite, something big and powerful that just laid on the bottom but we pulled the hook. After this we caught several black tip sharks, lost a few too that spun and jumped there way off. No more tarpon bites, but the march tarpon fishing key largo should get more consistent now with the warm weather. After the tide quit, we went further into the gulf and fished for triple tail. They were swarming as they have been the last several days, we caught about a dozen in an hour. Lots of fun sight casting to triple tail that are laying behind crab buoys, they fight and jump and are a blast on 10 lb test! Another great day here of key largo charter fishing. If your interested in tarpon fishing, now is the time I have some nights available still through prime season and that is often the best time to go, so drop me a line!

2/24/13 Key Largo Trout and Snapper Fishing

Had a half day today on 2/24/13 and did some key largo snapper fishing as well as key largo trout fishing. We hit some islands early with some live shrimp looking for mangrove snapper. We found a ton though had to weed through some small ones but managed to pick out some nice 12 inchers for dinner. Also off the edge of the bank that dropped into the moat, we picked three huge trout out as well as a redfish – unusual in the crystal clear water that is found in the area. The trout were all 24-25 inches, nice size for down here! Anything is possible on a key largo fishing charter which is what makes fishing down here so fun! After we had enough fun with this, we went in search of muds in the bay. These muds, often found in the spring and summer though can be around at any time, hold a variety of fish as well. The usual suspects are ladyfish, trout, jack crevalle, pompano, and occasionally you also get some blacktip sharks and tarpon in there too. Today we found more trout, not quite as big but several keeper size which we all released as well as some ladyfish. One thing I often like to do is hit these muds and keep the ladyfish for bait, then do some key largo tarpon fishing by fishing some of those live and dead on the bottom around the local channels and bridges. Didn’t try this today but definitely will become part of the half day routine as we enter the spring and tarpon season! If your thinking of doing some february key largo fishing get in touch, I may possibly have some late afternoon trips still available!

2/23/12 Key largo goliath grouper fishing!

We were after a key largo goliath grouper fishing today. Fished near the edge of the gulf as it was too rough to get out there deeper to the wrecks. Lots of action early whilst catching baitfish. A mix of trout, ladyfish, and jacks were just about every cast. Even a few spanish mackerel, bluefish, and pompano making their presence known! Key Largo shark fishing was on our minds too as we caught 4 medium sized blacktip sharks while doing all this. After we were loaded up.. goliath time! We hit the hole that I was thinking about… all of a sudden a bunch of cobias surrounded us! I reeled in the surface pinfish and one ate it, my angler also pitched too one and he ate as well – doubled up! Unfortunately his spit the bait/hook, but he reeled the other one in nicely. A little bit later after chunking some ladyfish and waiting with the big rods both doubled over hard! We gave chase leaving one fish behind with rod in holder. Decided to switch the fish we were working on as the one behind did roll over, and my angler started fighting him. After a few minutes there he was – big 150 lb goliath grouper on spin tackle.. nice catch! Grouper fishing in Key Largo is fun for these big boys! We then switched back to the other big fish which appeared to be a big ol’ sawfish. Fought him a bit more and I leadered him up carefully – all on monofilament 100lb! Got hit bill out of the water twice as he thrashed violently, 2nd time though he cut us off but at least we saw him and got a technical release! After that we hit a high water spot for some redfish which proved productive… 10 or so reds mostly keeper size though all were released.

2/15/13 Key Largo February Fishing Report

Looks like we have some more cold weather on the way this weekend. But the fish were feeding in the backcountry today for our february key largo fishing trip. We caught this nice small tarpon along with several large redfish, plus lost a nice snook at the boat, in one of the many creeks in the everglades on the falling tide. All on big ol’ shrimp nice, lively, and twitchy suckers! We took a look out in the gulf of mexico with the last of the falling tide to find a cobia, which we did. Unfortunately we had a hook pull on him and that was our only shot, but on the way back we saw plenty of triple tail on the crab buoys. We caught about 8 or so and one nice keeper for dinner for this key largo fishing in february day of fun! Hit some trout run-offs after all that and caught plenty of them too. Back near home the tarpon have been seen rolling in some of the basins and channels, we saw them on this day as well. We only had a couple tired pinfish left, but did make a few drifts and casted to some, alas none were interested. Look for it to get cold this weekend and perhaps our last good push of ‘cold weather’ fishing key largo. After that, tarpon will be back in the mix as we enter our key largo tarpon fishing season for 2013!

1/29/13 Key largo backcountry fishing in january

The winds howled the last few days here in key largo florida fishing. Gusts up to 25 mph! We decided to take a run back to the cape area to get out of it. One nice thing about my comfortable 20′ seacraft is you can still make it to the cape and anywhere in the backcountry or bay and have a nice time. It doesn’t pound, slap, or spray you terribly – you can’t say that about many smaller skiffs and such. Once we got back around ‘the corner’ things were nice and we were in the lee of the wind. Our first stop for our january key largo fishing trip was in a creek that the water had been falling out of and left very low tide. The bugs had other plans and drove us right back out, so we worked the outside shorelines. This proved a good thing as we caught 3 big snook up to 13 lbs jigging shrimp on the sandbars. After about 10:00 or so we tried the creek again, now the sun had come up and wind swung around a bit, so the bugs were gone. We picked away at plenty of redfish, small black drum, and sheepshead. Redfish in key largo is a good bet in the winter time. We worked our way further in and continued doing the same, though we did get lucky and catch this huge ~20 lb black drum. We had to motor after him down the creek as he almost got around a bend on us!!! We moved further back and found some nice trout too. Around noon we headed back towards home and stopped in a channel for some rod bending action, which we had – plenty of trout, ladyfish, and jacks for 45 minutes before calling it a day. A great way to spend a 20mph windy day key largo fishing in january!!!

1/26/13 Backcountry fishing report Key Largo!

Welcome back to another backcountry key largo fishing report friends! Today I had regulars with me who love to fish. We ran back to the everglades and around the cape area. The lower water levels had puppy drum stacked up in some creek mouths and runoffs. We hit ’em good catching 30 or so. We also got some nice surprises… big black drum! We had 2 on, one we chased down though lost around a tree unfortunately. The other we made sure not to let that happen, a nice 20 lber! Key Largo black drum fishing is a blast! We continued picking away at fish on the low tide, then when it started rising we moved to another creek. We caught lots of snapper, jacks, ladyfish, some trout, sheepshead, and a few more bigger redfish. The boys wanted to try for a snook, so we hit several spots in search of one. They were not biting red hot, but after 4 or so moves, we finally got lucky and got the kids one – a nice 5 lber. Key Largo Fishing Charters can offer quite the array of game fish. We also caught a few more sheepshead and such, and then made our way back home from the key largo flats fishing.

1/4/13 Key Largo Gulf Fishing Report

Hello friends and Happy New Year from keylargofishingreport.com. It’s been great weather and great fishing in key largo as of late! Today we did a mixed bag trip, starting out around the flamingo area in the key largo backcountry. We caught several red drum, black drum, sheepshead on our first put stop. Fishing the incoming tide while there was still a slight push of water. On slack tide we hit an area known to hold some snook in it’s deeper moat. We did hook one and lost him boatside, but also caught several sheepshead and more black drum. The tide was falling now and we decided to do more variety fishing so we headed for some channel runoffs a little further west out towards the gulf. We found a nice muddy cut and caught several trout, ladyfish, a few pompano, and a small permit! Key largo trout fishing is excellent in areas such as this in the winter time. We then headed out to some gulf wrecks, and spotted several tripletail on the way. We caught some nice ones for dinner, which are excellent tablefare! Upon arrival to the wrecks we put out a few pinfish on knocker rigs. We caught several cobia, one nice fish of 15 lbs or so, great stuff for a key largo fishing report. Also another permit a little bigger this time, as well as a 100 lb goliath grouper! The tide this far out had already turned back in by now too at 1:00 in the afternoon. We decided to run back towards south of key largo, off islamorada, and caught plenty of spanish mackerel while chumming. A great end to a fabulous day of fishing key largo!

Fishing Report Key Largo 12/30/12

Well we had another cold front here which put a damper on the key largo december fishing. Though we made it out today comfortably to east cape. We caught a snook, a few black drum, and sheepshead. The bites were few and far between however, water very mudded up and cold 65 degrees. We had the end of the falling tide. So we decided to run to some other areas, exposed banks and channel runoffs looking for redfish and trout. A good 2nd game plan for a key largo fishing charter. We found a handful of redfish in one area, caught about half a dozen and a few slot fish. Also a handful of mangrove snapper. Later we moved to another channel and lots of jacks, ladyfish, a few pompano, and trout. The water levels stayed low with the hard north/northeast wind even when tide started to come in flats were exposed. We caught 4 keeper trout which are still in season as it was never closed this year in our area. So we made the most of the difficult weather and conditions, bent the rod, and brought home dinner – a fine winter key largo fishing trip! The day before I had a half day and we caught 2 nice 10+ lb snook right off the bat. Caught about a dozen red and black drum as well, and finished off with plenty of ladyfish and jacks before heading home.

12/27/12 Key Largo Fishing Report December

Ahoy friends it is a busy week here fishing key largo and we’ve got some great fishing to report! We fished flamingo today and I had Stephen, Holly, and son Joe. We had a little bit more cool weather come in last night though it didn’t chill the water too much more which was good. This morning was fairly breezy out of the north/north east. No problem for my comfortable 20′ center console though! Rod bending action was on the agenda for this key largo fishing report and we had plenty of it. Started out fishing some channels for trout, jacks, snapper, ladyfish, and pompano. We caught plenty of fish though had to jump around a bit which you often do on a key largo fishing charter. We also caught a nice size bluefish which was a lot of fun for Joe! We later tried hitting a small creek around east cape, was barely able to make it in with the dead low water, but we did it! Unfortunately fishing wasn’t great there, the tide was just starting in but we only caught a couple small drum and some jacks. After this we had to meet some other boats that were part of our group deal at flamingo for lunch. This is a great option for kids and ladies, you can get off the boat, stretch your legs, use the facilities… whatever! We then headed back for a little more fishing before the day was done. December Key Largo Fishing stayed good through the afternoon, we caught several sheepshead, black drum, a few redfish, and one snook to end the day! That’s it for now guys hopefully we will see you out on the water soon!