EPIC Trip to Key West
So many trips over the years with high winds, cold temps and dirty water. Guess I paid the price enough to finally have the planets align and give us an incredible stretch of weather at the southernmost point. Flew to Miami on February 1st and after some customer visits I made the drive to Key West to meet up with my good buddy Capt. Justin Rea. Plan was to spend the next few days chasing skinny water fish, shoot photos and video and compete in CUDA BOWL 2011. Weather simply could not have been better. Starting on the 1st, we had little to no breeze, no clouds to speak of and highs around 80 degrees. The fish reacted to this little taste of spring and poured onto the flats around the Marquesas. We made the run west each of 4 days to be greeted by epic winter conditions and incredible fishing. The first 2 days, the big barracuda were up real shallow and VERY hungry. We had a blast with them on the fly releasing fish up to 50?. As the water warmed, the permit and tarpon poured onto the flats in numbers I?ve not seen before. The first tarpon of the season are typically BIG ones and these fish were just that. Most were in the 100 ? 140lb range.
First day we pounded on the barracuda, getting needed photos and video and enjoyed bonus shots at tarpon, permit and LOTS of aggressive blacktip sharks. It was indeed a banner day.
Second day started out as good as it could. Pulled up on a flat and we began seeing lots and lots of tarpon. After a few decent shots I got a real good set up with 2 fish cruising by at the right angle at about 50?. Managed a good cast and the lead fish piled on the fly. The Signature C68SZ in size 1 found its home firmly in the jaw of a 75-80 pound tarpon. This fish was small for what we were seeing but it was just fine as far as I was concerned. It spent the next 20 minutes putting on a spectacular aerial display, jumping around 15 times. It was barely 8:30 and we had court with the silver king. Too good. We spent the rest of the day covered up in tarpon, permit, sharks and barracuda. The action was non-stop all day. It was crazy at times handing off the tarpon rod for the permit rod and then passing that off for the cuda rod and the shark rod. Late in the day we were blessed to have 2 sawfish swim by. One was 16? and the other an incredible 18? in length. The 18 footer had 2 cobia on it and we hooked up with both of them. One was around 20 pounds and the other around 45 pounds. The 20 pounder came home and joined us for dinner : )
Day 3 on the water was day 1 of CUDA BOWL 2011. This new even had both fly and light spin divisions. Rules were simple. You could measure only 3 fish in each division. No culling. When you made the call to take a measure on a fish, you had to measure and record as one of your 3 fish. You could not then catch a larger fish and remove a smaller from your score sheet. All fish are measured and released unharmed, although maybe a bit smarter from the experience. CUDA BOWL is a fun event, not a serious big money deal. It?s an excuse for passionate anglers to get together, have some drinks, fish and tell stories. With so many permit and tarpon on the flats, we rushed to score our cuda?s so we could switch gears and chase the silver king and black tailed devils. Our barracuda averaged around 44? ? 45? but if we had taken our time we could have scored out with fish in the 48? ? 52? range. The rest of day 3 and 4 consisted of non-stop action on barracuda, tarpon, permit and sharks in less than 36? of water. It was simply incredible. Captain Justin Rea once again proved himself as THE guy to chase tarpon and permit on the fly with. We shot around 1000 photos and some truly incredible video thanks to LG and his big HD camera and the fleet of GoPro camera we had mounted on our hats. The 18 pound permit I took on the fly in just 20? of water was all caught on the GoPro in HD video. Somehow I managed a spot on 80? cast and the fish crushed Justin?s top secret crab fly, tied on a size 1 C68SZ Signature Tarpon hook. I?ll post a link to some of the video of this catch when it?s ready as there is an incredible story to go along with this permit. You?ll have to see the video to believe it so stay tuned.
This trip is burned into the memory bank forever.
This is the main reason for this trip. To attend and fish the first annual CUDA BOWL and it was a blast.
Cuda Bowl 2011 IMG_2244.jpg
LG Releases one of the permit that came to hand during the 4 days on the water
IMG_1769 Permit release.jpg
This was one of the studly black tailed devils I got to handle
IMG_1761 Admiring the black tailed devil.jpg
LG with one of MANY barracuda we tangled with
IMG_1960 LG and flats cuda.jpg
Here is my best permit of the trip just before release. Quite a story to go along with this fish
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