Winter time in Key West looks a little different than it does in the rest of the Continental United States. Our average temperature hovers in the low-mid 80’s year round. For Key West “cold” is somewhere in the 60’s with any sort of frequency. This usually occurs during “cold fronts” that we’ll get at random intervals anytime from Nov- April.

  The most helpful factor for fishing this time of year is consitency. It doesn’t matter wether the wind is blowing hard or if it is flat calm, but a consistent pattern is helpful for fish to get into a rythm and pattern. I like to use the analogy of breaking pool balls for how the fish are this time of year. When the weather is stable they’re nice and racked up in position, but when you get a major shift it’s like breaking them and they go all over.

 The main fishery this time of year for volume, variety, and consistency is our drifting of deeper grass flats. This usually occurs in the Backcountry basin system to the North East of Key West. Generally speaking a 5-8 mile run from the dock. In this fishery we’re drifting around schools of baitfish, generally mullet and ballyhoo. We throw artificial lures that replicate a weak and obvious baitfish to get the fishes attention. The number of species possible is huge but generally were seeing members of the snapper, ladyfish, jack, mackerel, shark, grouper, and seatrout families. Each family can have 5 or 6 different species of fish so you never really know what you’re going to hook. It is a lot of fun and always different day to day.

 Up on the flats and sightfishing this time of year the Barracuda really takes the spotlight. Getting up to 5 ft long and swimming up to 60mph in bursts, they are an excellent sportfishing target. The most numerous sized ones are 1.5-2.5 ft long, but with persistance and effort you can definitely find them in the 3ft+ class. Lots of activity and casting in this fishery as they like speed in their presentation. There will be shots at bonefish, permit, and our residential tarpon populations as well. Consistent warmer weather helps tremendously on that front. Thanks for reading and look forward to hopefully fishing with you soon.

-Capt. John – Purple Heron Charters