Read more from Jim's blog, Long time, no blog - I blame the weather! @ www.worldseafishing.com

They say time flies when you’re having fun and I would have to agree, I cannot believe that next year will be the ten-year anniversary of my first visit to the Florida Keys! This year I visited from mid April until early June and to start with the weather wasn’t much better than at home - the rain and the wind was just a little warmer! Unsettled conditions meant that the Tarpon fishing was a little inconsistent, with quite a few quiet spells, but we put in the hours and ended up with some nice fish. Fishing a total of 43 days (not all Tarpon fishing) we managed 113 takes, 77 hookups, 13 leader claims and 25 Tarpon to the boat - 22 over 100lb - the biggest estimated at 180lb. That’s a hookup ratio of 7/10 and a landing ratio of 5/10 - exactly the same as last year! Apart from sheer luck I could only credit consistency as accurate as this to the reliability of my tackle!



The big three in the Florida Keys are Tarpon, Bonefish and Permit. Tarpon tick all the boxes for me and I love Bonefish fishing, but this year I caught the Permit bug big time. There’s little skill required to catch Permit in deep water but they are the epitome of shallow water flats fishing. They’re more elusive than the other two of the big three, they spook easier with a boat, and generally they’re much harder to catch however if you’re an angler that loves sight fishing, stumbling across a dozen, two foot deep, sickle-tails (Permit between 20-30lb!) sticking out of 20” of water, heads down feeding, it is something else!

This happened to me one day during May, while I was actually checking out a new flat for Bonefish and for the following two weeks these Permit returned to the same flats at the same time and most days, for a couple of hours each day we searched and found them, and then patently stalked them, often for what would only be one or two chances but heart stopping ones at that! To say I learnt a lot about Permit fishing over those two weeks would be an understatement. Same time, same place, next year!! If you fancy joining us in the Florida Keys in 2013, you can contact me at info@fishinginflorida.co.uk

Read more from Jim's blog, Long time, no blog - I blame the weather! @ www.worldseafishing.com



Read more from Jim's blog, Long time, no blog - I blame the weather! @ www.worldseafishing.com