By Alex Lovett Woodsum
originally published in the November 2018 Issue of Tail Fly Fishing Magazine
It is the perfect late spring morning in the Keys – the type fly anglers dream about. Even in the pre-dawn darkness, the air is thick and sticks to our skin, and there isn’t a breath of wind for relief. Mosquitoes dance their irritating dance around us as we pack our car. I know it is going to be a great day in the backcountry, and the anticipation pushes my exhaustion to the back of my mind.
My friend Kyle flew in the afternoon before for what would be his first tarpon trip and first trip to the Keys. I always tell people that while I’ve been fortunate to travel the world to fish, there is a reason the Keys are my favorite place on earth. I knew Kyle could fish when I invited him down – he had spent years pursuing stripers in the northeast. Striper guys tend to have the casting distance and quickness needed to get the fly in front of a tarpon. But this is a different game. Trying to feed finicky migratory tarpon on the ocean is a special kind of challenge, but on these hot, slick calm days, the backcountry fish can be pretty cooperative if you can get a fly in front of them.
At dinner the night before, I warned what Kyle probably already knew: tarpon fishing can be tough, but if you’re going to target them, the Keys are the best place on earth to do it. Our guide, Capt. Joe Rodriguez is the kind of guy who will tell you right away what you’re doing wrong, and what you should be doing instead. He has been guiding for nearly half his life and fishing for the rest and has the knowledge to show for it. My tarpon fishing proficiency has exponentially increased in the few short years we’ve fished together.
We meet Joe in Islamorada and leave the dock at first light. The sunrise is almost too perfect, brilliant swaths of color radiating throughout the whole sky and slick water around us, the line between sea and sky imperceptible. Doubt creeps in – maybe we won’t find the fish. After a long run, we finally shut down. At first, the water is an undisrupted glassy mirror, but it doesn’t take long before we hear a familiar sound as tarpon start rolling everywhere, the early morning sun glinting off their silver backs. Kyle insists that I fish first, and after a brief protest, I strip line off the reel and step onto the casting deck. It is painful watching tarpon roll just out of reach, but Joe poles deftly to put me in front of fish. I get a long shot at a fish that rolls in range, but it never sees the fly. Joe directs me to the other side of the boat and my next cast lands a few feet in front of a rolling fish on the move. We watch in strained silence as a subtle wake grows in intensity behind the fly. I hear, “he’s gonna eat it,” from Joe just before the line goes tight and the fish erupts in acrobatic leaps, backlit by the sun. After landing it, I’m beaming, and we all laugh. It isn’t usually quite that easy.
Fish are still rolling all around as Kyle steps up. There is nothing more exciting than tarpon fishing in the Keys, and I love introducing people to it because they inevitably revert to frenetic, childlike enthusiasm. I stand excitedly on the cooler seat. The shots are consistent, and after shaking his nerves and getting some advice from Joe after some missed eats and a few jumped fish, Kyle manages to hook one and leader it a few minutes later. It goes airborne again and throws the fly, and Kyle grins from ear to ear as he steps off the platform. “You’re screwed,” I laugh. “It’s all downhill from here.”
The fish are still rolling, and I catch another before the wind starts to pick up a bit, and they stop rolling. We spend most of the remainder of the day running from storms and trying unsuccessfully to find more fish in the back. When the wind picks up more late in the day, we head to the ocean where the fish remind us how tarpon fishing often goes in the Keys. They keep their noses down and avoid our offerings, other than the occasional fish that feigns interest before swimming past.
After a successful first day, we continue down US 1 South towards the Lower Keys, past mangroves and turquoise water and pastel homes. Kyle marvels that there is some but not much apparent damage from Hurricane Irma. I explain that parts of the Keys had been hit hard, but people in the Keys had been through hurricanes before, they were resilient, and more than anything, they needed the tourists to come back. Plus, the fishing was incredible, so people were crazy not to come down here.
The next two days would be spent fishing with Capt. Brandon Cyr out of Key West, a place I had only fished a handful of times. Another 4:45 AM wake up couldn’t dampen our spirits after that great first day, and we meet Brandon at first light at Ocean’s Edge Marina. Brandon is a fourth generation conch, an affable guy with youthful enthusiasm who I quickly realize is also both a talented guide and entirely obsessed with fishing. The weather is almost identical to the previous day, and I am cautiously optimistic as he shuts the boat down in our first spot and hops up on the platform.
We chat and laugh as we look for rolling and laid-up fish, a task made somewhat difficult by the early morning sun. In low light, you have to read their body language to gauge where fish end up – a fast roll means they are on the move, a slow roll followed by bubbles means they are staying put. There is a serious learning curve (and a degree of luck) to this game, and Brandon is a great teacher, giving helpful guidance and having, above all, a reasonable degree of patience. I love this type of fishing: talking through it, the guessing game after fish show themselves briefly, casting, the breathless moments as you strip the line, waiting to get tight to a fish and watch them explode out of the water. Between shots at fish, Brandon tells us that he had a swimming scholarship to Nova Southeastern out of high school. He was there for exactly one day before realizing he had made a mistake, returning to Key West to become a fishing guide.
As the sun gets higher, we can finally see a group of big laid up fish in a white hole. We talk through the best approach as they are scattered a bit haphazardly, heads facing in all different directions. My first cast lands a little short and Brandon tells me to pick up and throw again. The next cast lands where I want it, and we watch as one fish’s interest is piqued. I’m holding my breath, and Brandon murmurs as she turns towards the fly with a gentle kick of the tail, examines it, and surges forward, inhaling it and immediately jumping wildly as she feels the hook. Line flies everywhere and rips through my fingers as I try to clear it, remarking that it’s a giant fish. I lose her after a few more jumps, but the fun part is over anyways. We get plenty of shots, and both manage to get a few before taking an afternoon break to explore the funky town of Key West. That evening, tired but exhilarated, we head back out for the worm hatch.
The worm hatch is a special event in the Keys, as tarpon go into a frenzy over little red palolo worms as they emerge from the bottom and wriggle along on the surface, making for easy, protein-rich targets. The hatch is triggered by a combination of lunar phase, tide, and weather, so its timing can be somewhat predictable. Once it begins, it usually goes on for days. The worms often appear in the evening, and eager anglers wait for this special time when the oft picky tarpon will eat with reckless abandon. The sun is still high as we head out to where Brandon found tarpon on worms the evening before. I remark to Kyle that he must have some good fish karma built up for the stars to be aligning so well.
Brandon poles us along a shallow flat along the edge of a narrow channel. We don’t see many worms in the water, but schools of smaller tarpon are cruising the flat with purpose, looking for them. A well-placed fly causes a fight between these small, eager fish, and Kyle quickly hooks and lands one. I follow suit, and after releasing my fish, toss the worm fly in the water next to the boat to check that it is still swimming okay. As I pull the fly back out, a silvery body with a bluish tail charges after it. I remark with surprise that it looked like a bonefish. I glance up about sixty feet and see a whole school of what look like bonefish, apparently eating worms. I drop a fly in their midst, and one eats it off the surface as the fly lands. We are all perplexed, but the fish pulls significant line off the reel in two screaming runs, and a few minutes later, a small bonefish is boat-side with a worm fly tucked neatly in the corner of its mouth.
We head to another nearby spot in a channel where a number of boats are already lined up fishing. Not much seems to be happening, as most of the anglers are casting without real purpose and we can’t see any worms in the water. A few tarpon roll intermittently. The sun is getting lower, and Kyle decides to make a few last casts before we call it a night. To our great surprise, he quickly goes tight and hooks a nice fish. He fights it for 20 minutes as the sun gets lower and lower, leadering it several times and getting it right up to the boat before it finally wears through the shock and breaks off. We return to the dock, tired and happy.
After two days of great fishing, we keep our expectations pretty low, but the third day proves to be even better. We start the morning in the same spot as the day before. Fish are rolling again, though the wind is up a bit more this time, and I hook a giant tarpon close to the boat right off the bat. She jumps, and we are all taken aback by her size. She takes me way into my backing and drags us all over the flat and eventually into the channel, where boats targeting tarpon on bait are lined up. The captains all know Brandon and shout encouragement to me and tease him as we try to land the massive tarpon. After a relatively long fight, I get the giant fish boat-side, and as Brandon reaches down to grab her mouth, she pulls away, wears through the shock tippet, and swims off into the depths. I am certain she is one of the biggest fish I’ve ever caught.
With the wind a bit stronger, the tarpon stay down more than the previous day, but Kyle still gets some good shots at laid up fish. After a while, we convince Brandon to let me pole him around for a bit, and he reluctantly accepts, making a few great casts and quickly convincing a fish to eat out of a nice cruising school. As the sun gets higher, we decide to change gears and run to look for bonefish and permit. As we shut down and grab a bonefish rod, we spot a school of big tarpon cruising across a sand flat and scramble to get the tarpon rod back out. The tarpon start daisy chaining right off the edge of the flat, and Kyle makes a few casts into the school before a willing fish sticks its whole head out the water to smash his fly. The school and the hooked fish take off together across the flat.
After landing Kyle’s fish, we are torn, wanting to target other species but knowing there are still lots of tarpon around. We soon see bonefish scurrying by, and I get up and catch one as Kyle stands behind me, tarpon rod at the ready. We then focus on permit, and Kyle takes the bow while I back him up from the middle with a tarpon rod. He gets a few permit shots and experiences the frustration of permit fishing before a lone tarpon cruises across the white sand. I strip line off my reel, we laugh as we frantically try to switch places, and I manage to feed the fish, landing it on a nearby flat in skinny water. We all get in to land, photograph and release the fish, and end up taking lunch while calf deep in the warm, crystal clear water, marveling at what an incredible couple of days it has been. “I love my job and wouldn’t trade it for anything,” Brandon remarks. “My dad always says, ‘Brandon, we might not ever be millionaires, but millionaires pay to escape their lives to come to the Keys and be a part of ours.’”
Bio: Alex Lovett-Woodsum lives in Coral Gables, Florida, where she runs a consulting business for outdoor-focused small businesses and nonprofits. She has been a consulting Editor for Tail and also helped run its social media and online marketing from 2016-2018. She also works on numerous conservation causes including Now or Neverglades. When she’s not working, Alex spends most of her waking hours fly fishing her home waters around Biscayne and the Florida Keys, as well as hosting trips and traveling to fish as much as she can. You can reach her by email at alexwoodsum@gmail.com or on Instagram @alexwoodsum.
The Guides
Captain Joe Rodriguez grew up in Miami and now lives in the Lower Keys. He has 21 years of experience guiding from Miami to Key West. He can be reached at (305) 494-0000.
Captain Brandon Cyr is a fourth generation conch who has spent as much time as possible on the water since he was a kid, and followed in his father’s footsteps as a fishing guide. He has been guiding for bonefish, tarpon and permit for the past seven years out of Key West, Florida. He can be reached at (305) 797-5076 or on Instagram @brandoncyrkw.
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