Watched a ton of Ed Ward, he's a master for sure. This is the video I studied to learn myself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__oUQ5OEq8g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__oUQ5OEq8g
Fishing the Keys
- Thread starter D Chapman
- Start date
Yeah, I've watched that video about 20 or 30 times. 
As you might imagine, the PNW is loaded with guys using two handed rods & spey casting. I took lessons on & off for a few years to figure out how to cast. The issue is that there are several schools of thought on casting technique and the guys love to diss the other side. The guy I took lessons from learned from Al Buhr whose technique is quite different from Ed Ward. Al Buhr's technique is to only change the single handed cast enough to make it work for the two handed rod. Ed Ward turned traditional casting on its head. Since Ed's style is more intuitive to me, I had to unlearn and start from scratch by watching his videos. I guess I could have tracked the guy down, but I was sick of taking lessons.
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As you might imagine, the PNW is loaded with guys using two handed rods & spey casting. I took lessons on & off for a few years to figure out how to cast. The issue is that there are several schools of thought on casting technique and the guys love to diss the other side. The guy I took lessons from learned from Al Buhr whose technique is quite different from Ed Ward. Al Buhr's technique is to only change the single handed cast enough to make it work for the two handed rod. Ed Ward turned traditional casting on its head. Since Ed's style is more intuitive to me, I had to unlearn and start from scratch by watching his videos. I guess I could have tracked the guy down, but I was sick of taking lessons.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g5Yjri9njLs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Yeah not a huge fan of that personally. I prefer snap-t's, and often don't have a ton of backcasting room. There can be many "correct" ways to cast a fly, but they don't all work for everyone.
We leave in a week. Planning on doing some diving while we're there as well and lobsters are back in season. I'm sure we'll hit the Hump at least one day and depending on the bite we may go back. But yeah, we plan on hitting the flat as well.
Speaking of Yeti and flats fishing...
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<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/176120821" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
If you go grouper digging you need to get just far enough off the bottom that they will come out of there rock den to grab it. But you need to be fast enough to keep him from getting back into his little rock den. If he gets back in there you aint never getting him up off the damn bottom. I miss that shit.
When I was a kid we fished for Steelhead when they ran up the Little Calumet River out of Lake Michigan. We foul hooked them till we were 18. Then my dad had a little sit down with me about being legal and all that boring adult shit.
I did alot of grouper digging when I was in my 20's living in Clearwater Florida. Snapper would be about 2 out of 10 fish. That and fishing for Snook. I would love to get into some Snook now. To catch a snook you need to keep your bail open with a finger keeping your line from unraveling. When the snook hits your bait its like a train. It runs with it and turns it in it's mouth to swallow it head first. So you need to count like about 4 seconds and slam your bail shut. That fucker will come up out of the water and tail walk and all kind of violent shit. If you get a chance to fish the flats for snook do it. I catch Northern Pike on a big lake up here, it aint shit compared to a 18lb snook. They are a brackish water fish. It likes to lay out in the opening of a river dumping into salt water and pick off fish that are dying in the salt water. Rattle traps work fucking great.
Been going down for 13 years. I rent a house in boot key harbor and a 25 whaler for the week. Offshore get yourself some rigged hoo on wire and some skirts (I like purple pink and mahi color skirts). Rigged hoo on mono if you want sails (they will hit the wire too) I run topshot to a swivel then attach to the wire for easy change outs. Aim the boat south east and look for weedlines and birds. If birds stay on the move (probably turns) you have some kind of tuna and you should let your shotgun line waaaaaaaay out and swing it through the fish. Tuna love small dark feathers. If birds are working weedlines there is probably mahi around. If you get on a school of mahi leave one in the water and the school wont leave. If you dont have weedlines due to bad wind direction, aim the boat at one of the humps or a wreck. Keep an eye out for anything floating, usually mahi or wahoo around the floaters. If you make it to the humps and there are tons of boats, the fish will be deep. Set up drifts upcurrent of the hump, drop speed jigs down very deep and jig up. You should get 2 drops per drift. If its a little snotty out, there wont be too many boats and the fish will be up. I have been at the marathon hump when over a 100 frigates were crashing. Boat full of tuna and mahi in 30 minutes. The ride out took 3 hours.
Troll at 6-8 mph. Make sure you arent weeded up and your baits are swimming well. I rarely waste time on weedlines without birds working, just run and gun until you have structure/bait/ and birds. If you dont know how to use out riggers put one rigged way out, one midway and a deep diving rapala in the prop wash. If its rough out you can troll the reef edge like this too and catch all sorts of stuff. Have spinning setups with bait ready for schools. If you want inshore advice shoot me a pm. Of shore is easy fishing you just burn a lot of gas. They keys is like crack.
Troll at 6-8 mph. Make sure you arent weeded up and your baits are swimming well. I rarely waste time on weedlines without birds working, just run and gun until you have structure/bait/ and birds. If you dont know how to use out riggers put one rigged way out, one midway and a deep diving rapala in the prop wash. If its rough out you can troll the reef edge like this too and catch all sorts of stuff. Have spinning setups with bait ready for schools. If you want inshore advice shoot me a pm. Of shore is easy fishing you just burn a lot of gas. They keys is like crack.
We hit the humps only 1 day. Some of the days we had questionable weather and being rookies on a boat we did not risk it. We had a 24' single engine Cobia and even in 2' swells we were taking a bath.
We never hooked up at the humps. We saw 5-6 fish caught, but apparently the day we were there the fishing was just not good. We were rigged just as you mentioned. We spend the majority of our time in the Delta Shoals area where the depth dropped to about 80-100'. We caught yellow tail mostly there on live pilchards. We also fished a lot in Vaca Cut - this is where we caught our pilchards daily. We loaded the boat with muttons, school master and mangroves here. Most of our lobster came from the gulf side in an area called Bamboo (something). It was about 6-miles north of Vaca Cut and only about 12' deep max. Speared a monster black grouper here as well.
We fueled-up one day in Boot Key and took advantage of the free 100lbs ice deal. While fueling we saw a boat sink across the harbor in shallow water. It was still there the day we left. We also had several meals at Sunset Grille.
We never hooked up at the humps. We saw 5-6 fish caught, but apparently the day we were there the fishing was just not good. We were rigged just as you mentioned. We spend the majority of our time in the Delta Shoals area where the depth dropped to about 80-100'. We caught yellow tail mostly there on live pilchards. We also fished a lot in Vaca Cut - this is where we caught our pilchards daily. We loaded the boat with muttons, school master and mangroves here. Most of our lobster came from the gulf side in an area called Bamboo (something). It was about 6-miles north of Vaca Cut and only about 12' deep max. Speared a monster black grouper here as well.
We fueled-up one day in Boot Key and took advantage of the free 100lbs ice deal. While fueling we saw a boat sink across the harbor in shallow water. It was still there the day we left. We also had several meals at Sunset Grille.
Sweet, sounds like a good trip. If you ever go down again hit me up. I can provide some numbers of wrecks in 120' that produce well around Marathon. No Mahi? Lately June-July have been the best Mahi months for us. May used to be the best. Post a pic of the grouper.