2/23/12 Key largo goliath grouper fishing!

We were after a key largo goliath grouper fishing today.  Fished near the edge of the gulf as it was too rough to get out there deeper to the wrecks.  Lots of action early whilst catching baitfish.  A mix of trout, ladyfish, and jacks were just about every cast.  Even a few  spanish mackerel, bluefish, and pompano making their presence known!  Key Largo shark fishing was on our minds too as we caught 4 medium sized blacktip sharks while doing all this.  After we were loaded up.. goliath time!  We hit the hole that I was thinking about… all of a sudden a bunch of cobias surrounded us!  I reeled in the surface pinfish and one ate it, my angler also pitched too one and he ate as well – doubled up!  Unfortunately his spit the bait/hook, but he reeled the other one in nicely.  A little bit later after chunking some ladyfish and waiting with the big rods both doubled over hard!  We gave chase leaving one fish behind with rod in holder.  Decided to switch the fish we were working on as the one behind did roll over, and my angler started fighting him.   After a few minutes there he was – big 150 lb goliath grouper on spin tackle.. nice catch!  Grouper fishing in Key Largo is fun for these big boys!  We then switched back to the other big fish which appeared to be a big ol’ sawfish.  Fought him a bit more and I leadered him up carefully – all on monofilament 100lb!  Got hit bill out of the water twice as he thrashed violently, 2nd time though he cut us off but at least we saw him and got a technical release!  After that we hit a high water spot for some redfish which proved productive… 10 or so reds mostly keeper size though all were released.

2/15/13 Key Largo February Fishing Report

Looks like we have some more cold weather on the way this weekend.  But the fish were feeding in the backcountry today for our february key largo fishing trip.  We caught this nice small tarpon along with several large redfish, plus lost a nice snook at the boat, in one of the many creeks in the everglades on the falling tide.  All on big ol’ shrimp nice, lively, and twitchy suckers!  We took a look out in the gulf of mexico with the last of the falling tide to find a cobia, which we did.  Unfortunately we had a hook pull on him and that was our only shot, but on the way back we saw plenty of triple tail on the crab buoys.  We caught about 8 or so and one nice keeper for dinner for this key largo fishing in february day of fun!  Hit some trout run-offs after all that and caught plenty of them too.  Back near home the tarpon have been seen rolling in some of the basins and channels, we saw them on this day as well.  We only had a couple tired pinfish left, but did make a few drifts and casted to some, alas none were interested.  Look for it to get cold this weekend and perhaps our last good push of ‘cold weather’ fishing key largo.  After that, tarpon will be back in the mix as we enter our key largo tarpon fishing season for 2013!

1/29/13 Key largo backcountry fishing in january

The winds howled the last few days here in key largo florida fishing.  Gusts up to 25 mph!  We decided to take a run back to the cape area to get out of it.  One nice thing about my comfortable 20′ seacraft is you can still make it to the cape and anywhere in the backcountry or bay and have a nice time.  It doesn’t pound, slap, or spray you terribly – you can’t say that about many smaller skiffs and such.  Once we got back around ‘the corner’ things were nice and we were in the lee of the wind.  Our first stop for our january key largo fishing trip was in a creek that the water had been falling out of and left very low tide.  The bugs had other plans and drove us right back out, so we worked the outside shorelines.  This proved a good thing as we caught 3 big snook up to 13 lbs jigging shrimp on the sandbars.  After about 10:00 or so we tried the creek again, now the sun had come up and wind swung around a bit, so the bugs were gone.  We picked away at plenty of redfish, small black drum, and sheepshead.  Redfish in key largo is a good bet in the winter time.  We worked our way further in and continued doing the same, though we did get lucky and catch this huge ~20 lb black drum.  We had to motor after him down the creek as he almost got around a bend on us!!!  We moved further back and found some nice trout too.  Around noon we headed back towards home and stopped in a channel for some rod bending action, which we had – plenty of trout, ladyfish, and jacks for 45 minutes before calling it a day.  A great way to spend a 20mph windy day key largo fishing in january!!!

1/26/13 Backcountry fishing report Key Largo!

Welcome back to another backcountry key largo fishing report friends!  Today I had regulars with me who love to fish.  We ran back to the everglades and around the cape area.  The lower water levels had puppy drum stacked up in some creek mouths and runoffs.  We hit ’em good catching 30 or so.  We also got some nice surprises… big black drum!  We had 2 on, one we chased down though lost around a tree unfortunately.  The other we made sure not to let that happen, a nice 20 lber!  Key Largo black drum fishing is a blast!  We continued picking away at fish on the low tide, then when it started rising we moved to another creek.  We caught lots of snapper, jacks, ladyfish, some trout, sheepshead, and a few more bigger redfish.  The boys wanted to try for a snook, so we hit several spots in search of one.  They were not biting red hot, but after 4 or so moves, we finally got lucky and got the kids one – a nice 5 lber.  Key Largo Fishing Charters can offer quite the array of game fish.  We also caught a few more sheepshead and such, and then made our way back home from the key largo flats fishing.

1/4/13 Key Largo Gulf Fishing Report

Hello friends and Happy New Year from keylargofishingreport.com.  It’s been great weather and great fishing in key largo as of late!  Today we did a mixed bag trip, starting out around the flamingo area in the key largo backcountry.  We caught several red drum, black drum, sheepshead on our first put stop.  Fishing the incoming tide while there was still a slight push of water.  On slack tide we hit an area known to hold some snook in it’s deeper moat.  We did hook one and lost him boatside, but also caught several sheepshead and more black drum.  The tide was falling now and we decided to do more variety fishing so we headed for some channel runoffs a little further west out towards the gulf.  We found a nice muddy cut and caught several trout, ladyfish, a few pompano, and a small permit!  Key largo trout fishing is excellent in areas such as this in the winter time.  We then headed out to some gulf wrecks, and spotted several tripletail on the way.  We caught some nice ones for dinner, which are excellent tablefare!  Upon arrival to the wrecks we put out a few pinfish on knocker rigs.  We caught several cobia, one nice fish of 15 lbs or so, great stuff for a key largo fishing report.  Also another permit a little bigger this time, as well as a 100 lb goliath grouper!  The tide this far out had already turned back in by now too at 1:00 in the afternoon.  We decided to run back towards south of key largo, off islamorada, and caught plenty of spanish mackerel while chumming.  A great end to a fabulous day of fishing key largo!

Fishing Report Key Largo 12/30/12

Well we had another cold front here which put a damper on the key largo december fishing.  Though we made it out today comfortably to east cape.  We caught a snook, a few black drum, and sheepshead.  The bites were few and far between however, water very mudded up and cold 65 degrees.  We had the end of the falling tide.  So we decided to run to some other areas, exposed banks and channel runoffs looking for redfish and trout.  A good 2nd game plan for a key largo fishing charter.  We found a handful of redfish in one area, caught about half a dozen and a few slot fish.  Also a handful of mangrove snapper.  Later we moved to another channel and lots of jacks, ladyfish, a few pompano, and trout.  The water levels stayed low with the hard north/northeast wind even when tide started to come in flats were exposed.  We caught 4 keeper trout which are still in season as it was never closed this year in our area.  So we made the most of the difficult weather and conditions, bent the rod, and brought home dinner – a fine winter key largo fishing trip!  The day before I had a half day and we caught 2 nice 10+ lb snook right off the bat.  Caught about a dozen red and black drum as well, and finished off with plenty of ladyfish and jacks before heading home.  

12/28/12 Great key largo snook fishing in the backcountry!

Key Largo snook fishing was great today on 12/28/12.  That’s what my anglers wanted to that’s what we gave ’em!  Started out around flamingo on the falling tide around some mangroves and such.  Big shrimp on jigs was the ticket, bouncing them along the edges.  Caught half a dozen or so, a few real nice fish likely 10-12 lbs.  Also caught a dozen puppy drum redfish.  December key largo fishing provides lots of variety at times!  After this we ran towards east cape in the big canal.  We caught one nice snook on one of the edges, and not much else – lots of boats in there with christmas week!  We moved further inside and found a current eddy along one of the banks.  The trick here was letting the shrimp sit on the bottom, moving it ever so slightly.  Lots of redfish, a few black drum, and some more juvenile snook!  Shrimp was all we needed today, tried some pinfish but not much luck on those!  If your thinking of fishing next year, make the trip down here for some backcountry fishing key largo!

12/27/12 Key Largo Fishing Report December

Ahoy friends it is a busy week here fishing key largo and we’ve got some great fishing to report!  We fished flamingo today and I had Stephen, Holly, and son Joe.  We had a little bit more cool weather come in last night though it didn’t chill the water too much more which was good.  This morning was fairly breezy out of the north/north east.  No problem for my comfortable 20′ center console though!  Rod bending action was on the agenda for this key largo fishing report and we had plenty of it.  Started out fishing some channels for trout, jacks, snapper, ladyfish, and pompano.  We caught plenty of fish though had to jump around a bit which you often do on a key largo fishing charter.  We also caught a nice size bluefish which was a lot of fun for Joe!  We later tried hitting a small creek around east cape, was barely able to make it in with the dead low water, but we did it!  Unfortunately fishing wasn’t great there, the tide was just starting in but we only caught a couple small drum and some jacks.  After this we had to meet some other boats that were part of our group deal at flamingo for lunch.  This is a great option for kids and ladies, you can get off the boat, stretch your legs, use the facilities… whatever!  We then headed back for a little more fishing before the day was done.  December Key Largo Fishing stayed good through the afternoon, we caught several sheepshead, black drum, a few redfish, and one snook to end the day!  That’s it for now guys hopefully we will see you out on the water soon!

december snook fishing key largo
december snook fishing key largo

Fishing Report Key Largo

Had some fun on christmas day today for our fishing report key largo!  The take today was snook, redfish, black drum, seatrout, ladyfish, snapper, jack crevalle, and cobia!  Such a variety of fish!  We caught some fishing the gulf of mexico.  Now this is normally a far far run from key largo fishing.  However if you drive down south to Islamorada and depart there (only 20 minutes!) it is totally feasible!  Some of the big redfish, cobia, and occasionally snook can be found on some structure out here as we did today.  Inside the canal of east cape, we picked away at black drum and more snook, as well as some juvenile redfish and trout.  Mostly casting shrimps and bouncing them slowly on the bottom.  We did catch a few snook on artificial white/red jigs.  3/8oz wait and worked them quickly around mangrove edges and downed trees.  So many different possibilities on a december key largo fishing trip!  The rest of the week the waters will continue to warm, today they reached 67 degrees – much more pleasant for the backcountry fish!  We should continue to have east/south east winds which are much warmer, so christmas week fishing should be very nice!  Give me a call if your looking to go out!

December Backcountry Fishing Key Largo

Hello friends and thanks for tuning in for this december key largo fishing report!  Today we hit flamingo which is a well known area for boats fishing out of Islamorada and Key Largo.  Though Islamorada it can be a much quicker run especially if you want to work out west of there!!!  We had a handful of juvenile reds and not much else so decided to move out towards the cape.  Boats were out and about today, and many in spots I wanted to fish unfortunately, so I ended up running all the way to east cape.  When we have these very cold waters from cold fronts, often times fish get pushed up into the creeks and canals that go up into the mainland in the deeper water seeking warmth.  I was hoping for this on our key largo fishing charter.  However fishing was not as great as I hoped though we picked at fish, catching 15 or so black drum, redfish, and sheepshead back there.  I think many were still in shock from the temperature drop, as a few days ago the water was still 75 and we have not had any other cold water aside from a mini front around thanksgiving.  A couple of the black drum and sheepshead were nice size though which made the day and got us a good dinner!  All fish caught using live shrimp on jigs key largo backcountry fishing.  This christmas week looks to be slammed, if you want to go fishing give me a call I have a couple afternoon slots open or can find great experience key largo fishing guide boats to send you with!  Hope you have a merry christmas and happy new years, we will be out there catching some fish!