Wind Rows of Foam

If you remember back to the post on the 24th of April around midnight, I let everyone know that Kyle and I were on our way down to Key Largo for a short stay at the Key Largo Inn before we were to meet up with our guide early that morning to fish out of Islamorada. We were excited to say the least and our goals were set high with thoughts of tarpon and bonefish...and just maybe a shot at a permit. Little did we know we would be up against it with terrible fly fishing conditions and only less than a handful of chances at a tarpon.

That Saturday morning we were up and ready to go around 6:15am. As we drove down from Key Largo to Islamorada we could not help but notice how the fiercely high winds were whipping the palm trees and flags around. We kept our spirits up with the static sounding tunes from US 1 Radio (104.1 FM) and ignored the gusty winds.

We met up with Davey Wilson, our guide, at the Lorelei around mile marker 82. After the introductions and friendly morning banter we boarded his skiff in route to Indian Key for some wind protected casting tune ups and casting instruction. I really believe he just wanted to see what we had in our "casting bag" and had what it took to fly cast in the Keys. We shot through some mangroves on the path to Indian Key and along the way my hat blew right out of the boat because when we arrived I could not find it anywhere. Luckily Kyle had an extra one for me to wear in his back pack.


We both kind of sand-bagged on our abilities at Indian Key but he was complimentary of our casts and informed us we had what it took. This made us feel pretty good however Davey kept reminding us it was going to be a tough day with the winds.

Davey anchored the boat at Indian Key along the west side of the small island for a good three hours or so. It protected us from the wind and the water along the west side of the island was safe from the choppy breaks of the Atlantic. Plus he said he had some luck with some tarpon rolling through this area on guided trips from the past. All we saw was a couple of sharks and a few rays in between a barracuda biting through Kyle's leader and one tarpon I tossed at that had little interest in my fly.

So we loaded up for a drive to the Gulf side where Davey had some flats lined up that may give us a better shot at a tarpon and/or a bonefish.

Davey tried his hardest but it just was not in the cards for us that day. He was calling other guides constantly in an effort to find out if they were having any good fortune and attempting to pole us through some rough flats...

...The wind was absolutely ridiculous. It was howling between 20-30 mph as seen here ripping through my shirt and pants...

The strong winds caused a chop on the water that not only made it difficult to site cast but ol' Davey had his own difficulties steering the boat as he poled and motored the skiff from flat to flat. And if choppy waters were not enough to try and see through, wind rows of foam started to form on the water's surface, adding to the difficult clarity of spotting a tarpon...let alone any type of fish.

We tried a number of different flats but the conditions were just not favorable to a couple of fly fishermen. Poor Davey had so much trouble poling that he eventually just started anchoring up his skiff with hopes of positioning us in a location where tarpon would pass by as we casted from the back of the boat. I had about 3 shots at some tarpon when he adopted this method but by the time we saw them cruising it was way too late. I had to make a precise cast to a fish going in the opposite direction that was more concerned about going from point A to point B than taking a fly. Most of the time my fly line would get wrapped up around the motor or the poling platform.

Toward the end of the day with Davey we knew our chances of hooking up with a fish were not going to happen. He had informed us about half way through the day that he "normally doesn't fly fish when it's this bad in the Keys." If that was not comforting enough for us, he broke his three-piece 21 foot poling shaft at the first segmented section and lost it to the sea. Kyle and I felt terrible for the guy because we knew he was embarrassed and really was not sure what to do. It was not like he had an extra 21 foot pole laying around his skiff.

We tried one more flat on the Atlantic side but with every jarring bounce of the boat and splash of cool water to the face on the ride over, our motivation for fly fishing was falling by the wayside. Davey was not exactly feeling it either and we could tell that his old bones were getting tired. After giving it a short shot at the last flat with his anchoring method, he finally asked, "Would you boys be upset if we were to call it day and head back? It has just been too tough out here today." We agreed without hesitation and made our way back to the Lorelei.

The day was rough. I had a few tough shots at some tarpon, we did not see one bonefish, and Kyle's only real excitement came with the 'cuda that made short work of the leader with his razor sharp teeth. Luckily for us, Davey was more than kind enough to give us a break on the guided-trip fee because of the tough conditions on the water.

With the disappointing day of fishing behind, we jumped back in the car and headed further south down US 1 to the Conch Republic...

...Key West, that is.

After checking into the hotel and cleaning up, we treated ourselves to a grand dinner at Red Fish Blue Fish and enjoyed a few laughs about our day on the water. We joked that we were like Captain Rich Tudor and Tom Rowland recapping their fishing day on each episode of the Salt Water Experience...only we had no fish landed to speak of!

That evening we took in all the sights and sounds that Mallory square has to offer. Plus we saw a neat sunset over Sunset Key...

We walked around the docks doing a bit of sight seeing before we committed ourselves to all the fun bars along Duval Street...

Sunday morning came early in Key West thanks to a headache and the feral roosters roaming the streets...

We had planned to hit some accessible flats we knew of around Key West in the morning but the weather conditions for the day were going to be the exact same as Saturday's. Instead we decided to stroll around Key West since we had only seen it at night. And seeing it night does not really bode well to our memory because we are usually a few cocktails in when we are enjoying the sights of Duval Street...

Captain Tony's (home of the original Sloppy Joe's)...

...and where Ernest Hemingway spent some time when we was not fishing or writing in the 30s.

The new Sloppy Joe's...

We even ran into Papa at the Key West Historic Memorial Sculpture Garden that honors 36 Conchs that have made a positive influence on the Island.

After our walk-about, we got back in the car to head North to Miami so we could catch our flight home. We made a few stops along the way...

...one of which cost us a little over five hundred bucks.

It is almost too embarrassing to tell, but for the sake of a good laugh and a picture of a fish from our trip, I'll share. Kyle and I were clipping along US 1 making good time. As we approached Islamorada it was about 4:30pm and we came across an accessible flat we fished before. The last time we were here we had a shot at some bonefish and at this time of day, the tide was just right for us to work the flat. We decided we would try it again and figured we had some time in order to do so. At this point during the day, we thought our flight left at 8:45pm. I asked Kyle what time we should be back in the car driving to the airport and he said, "About 6:00pm." Focused on rigging my rod I agreed without clearly running the numbers in my head.

We worked through the flat twice. The first time through at the tail end of the flat, I saw what appeared to be two ghosts of the flats and sent a cast their way. I over shot them a bit and as I stripped the fly ever so gently they spooked in a flash. This little sign of life gave us the urging to walk back around to the beginning of the flat and work our way back down a second time.

On this second trip through the flat, I turned a fish and had him finally take my fly after I had stripped it in to about ten feet from me. I had no clue what was on the end of my line, but he ran quite a bit of it out racing across the flats. When I finally had him close enough to land and the fight was drained from him, the sight of him made me a little apprehensive to pick up immediately...

It was nothing I had seen before...

...and I treated him like some sort of poisonous alien fish that freaked me out as I tried to work the courage up to pull him out of the water and retrieve my fly.

After what seemed like forever, with Kyle giving me the business to get tough and grab the dang thing, I pulled the oddly shaped peculiar looking species out of the water for a photo op. Now you will see what I mean by alien looking fish...

See what I mean? I believe it was some sort of Boxfish but not entirely sure as most of my experience is relegated to freshwater species or the popular and well known salt water species. If someone out there knows exactly what this is, please feel free to let me know.

But back to story of getting to the airport. If you remember, we felt that if we were on the road by 6:00pm, we would be in good shape to catch what we thought was our 8:45pm flight. However, when we got back to the car and looked at the clock, it read 6:21pm...YIKES! Islamorada is about two hours from Miami but that is on a good day with less traffic. On an end of the weekend Sunday with everyone leaving the Keys heading back to the mainland and being South of Islamorada proper, we knew there was about a snowball's chance in you know where of catching our flight!

Nonetheless, I jumped into our compact SUV driver's seat and we made our push to Miami International. I tried my best Ricky Bobby driving skills to go fast, but with all the traffic on US 1 there was no way to make up the time. We also learned along the way that our flight actually left at 8:35pm...not 8:45pm, so those ten minutes hampered our chances as well. Plus we still had to drop the car off at Avis and then catch a bus to the airport. We arrived at the airport at about 8:20pm and still held out a small glimmer of hope we could catch the plane. However they kindly informed us we were late and would not allow us the opportunity to sprint through the terminal to our gate. We had to be there at least 45 minutes before our flight.

So, we were stuck in Miami for one more night. There were no other flights heading to DFW that night and our best option was to catch a 6:30am flight Monday morning. What was going to be an economically friendly recession trip to Keys just got a bit more expensive. You see, we used some miles for our flight but because we missed our return flight the earliest flight we could use our miles on was at 11:30am. And the other point we had in planning this trip was not to miss any work time from our respective jobs. But if we were to take that later flight with our miles, we would have missed more than half a day of work. So we sprung the cash for the early morning flight and one more night at a hotel so we could make it back in time for our jobs.

It was beyond stupid on our part to miss that flight, but the thoughts of a bonefish from an accessible flat in the Keys impaired our judgement. It was a costly mistake in time mangement we hated to make and it is best summed up in that classic Mastercard commercial way...

Monday's One Way Ticket to DFW for Sunday Evening's Missed Flight...$383

6 Hour Stay at the Hilton for Sunday Evening's Missed Flight...$95

Additional Dinner Meal at the Hilton for Sunday Evening's Missed Flight...$39

Catching ONE fish on your economically friendly recession Florida Keys fishing trip and having no idea what it is...Priceless.

-Parker