Permit Andy.jpg — The Islamorada Fishing Report

Key Largo and Islamorada Fly and Inshore

Fly fishing in the Florida Keys has its ups and its downs, and weather certainly plays a large part. Though we did have some success early this week, fly fishing for tarpon was made difficult by high winds and waves. There have been some fish on the ocean but with steady wind around 20mph made for tough conditions. We still managed to catch a few nice fish this week though! The permit are hot off their spawning grounds and hungry and if you know where to look you’ll get tight! Finding leeward zones has been the ticket for fly anglers that don’t want to fight the wind. There have been some baby tarpon milling around the mangroves eating good casts and strip sets!

Fly Fishing for Tarpon in the Florida Keys

Backcountry and Everglades

Fly fishing in the backcountry has been great if you can find clean water. The flats have been producing solid numbers or reds and snooks. Just looks for the muds! Fishing the mangrove banks with bait has been very productive in certain areas. Just be sure to find moving water and if you don’t get a bite in a few casts move on, especially with live bait. This weeks weather looks great, the horse flies will be out in full force without the wind! The sight fishing should be great! Keep and eye out for rolling tarpon.

Fishing for snook in the Everglades has been great the past few weeks!

I still have dates available for the few 2 weeks of july. backcountry fly and spin fishing is great this time of year of year!

Thanks for reading

Capt Josh

The weather has been awesome these past few days! The water has been glass for the past 3 days and we have had plenty of shots at permit and big tarpon. When the conditions line up it makes fly fishing the backcountry a dream. We can see tarpon roll a long way off and permit tailing in areas that are difficult to fish otherwise. We did manage to sight fish a few cobia this week and that was amazing, and delicious. Best table fare the keys have to offer in my opinion.

Early this week consisted of windy fly fishing conditions, though the wind was up we still managed to land a few nice snook on the fly and had multiple shots at redfish. Fly Fishing in the Keys can be amazing, however its only as amazing as your ability to cast. I highly recommend casting lessons and practice before your trip to the keys. Theres nothing worse than being just 10ft short of a tailing permit! As a rule of thumb I tell my guests to practice until they are able to cast 60ft comfortably, a double haul helps. I have links and resources that I send my guests to help practice. Let me know if you need a tune up before your visit, I am happy to help! Simply making a vid of yourself casting and sending it to me for review can help a lot!

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you on the water,

Capt Josh