Flies for lower keys

[PiKapp]

Anyone have any good tips on flies to bring to the lower keys? I am thinking bonefish and tarpon, but will also do some snook and jacks on the way down and back up. All suggestions would be great!

[peregrines]

PiKapp

First a disclaimer, I can't even pretend to be an expert, but here goes since no one else has replied so far:

Your odds go way up with a guide, so I would plan on booking one and follow his/her advice regarding flies, especially for bones and tarpon. Food will vary from location to location, and in the course of a day on the water, guides may switch through bunches of different patterns based on water color, amount of sunlight, bottom color etc etc.

That being said, I'd take a basic selection of flies for Tarpon, size 2/0 such as Apte II (Tail: furnace hackles Collar: Furnace or orange squirrel, head: orange or black thread.) for backcountry, Green Grizz (tail: white, chartreuse grizzly and natural grizzly hackles, collar: chartreuse hackle, Head: chartreuse head) for ocean fish. Other tarpon key style flies like Purple Death, Cockroaches, White Lightening are good additions. A weighted chartruse rabbit strip type fly might also be good for dredging channels, but sight fishing with key style flies is much more fun. Make sure your hooks are SHARP. A great book on tarpon fishing is Tarpon On Fly by Donald Larmouth and Rob Fordyce (Rob is one of the best tarpon guides in the keys). It has a ton of really useful info on techniques, presentation, flies, fighting fish etc. There's a lot ot know.

For Bones, I'd tie up Del Brown Permit Flies (also called Merkins) in both light tan or cream and tan/dark brown) on size 2 hooks. Dark bottoms = dark flies, Light bottom= light flies is a good rule of thumb. This is a great all around bonefish fly, is easy to tie, and may also get you a permit. Other bonefish flies for the keys tend to be on the meaty side (compared to Bahamas patterns like Crazy Charlies and Gotchas) Borski sliders, Puffs etc are good choices, again in light and dark shades, also size 2. Clousers in tan and chartreuse are good to have too.

For incidental fish (snook, sea trout, red fish, jacks etc.) a good selection of basic saltwater patterns would be good to have such as a few Deceivers in Blue /White and or Green/White, clousers, bendbacks, Spun Deerhair head flies like Whitlock Divers or Tabory Slab Sides, and some saltwater poppers.

I hope this helps. but again, I would recommend you get a good guide that really knows the flats and defer to him/her on fly choice.

Good luck!

peregrines