# Islamorada



## Fishmaster 196 (Mar 19, 2016)

Gotta love the Keys. Had one of my best fishing trips ever there last year. All we did was reef and wreck fish, caught lots of fish. Headed back in April.


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## Lamarsh (Aug 19, 2014)

Been to Islamorada tons of times, and have done pretty much all types of fishing, ranging from guided offshore, patch reef and inshore/backcountry, as well as patch reef fishing and backcountry fishing DIY with a boat rental. 

Personally, the high cost and dice roll as to having a good day when deep sea offshore fishing, for me, makes it not worth it unless you have a decent sized group. I personally enjoy the backcountry much more, guided or not. In the FL bay backcountry, even if you're not catching the targeted sport fish, whether it's tarpon, redfish or black drum, etc, any guide will still be able to turn a slow day into an action packed day with a pretty much guaranteed limit of mangrove snapper (pretty much my favorite fish to eat) or some bent rod action on some sharks. The really good guides book up fast. 

If you have the boating skills and fishing know how, I would strongly recommend renting a boat and hitting the FL bay backcountry on your own. We do this every year, and bring our own gear, sonar screen and charts of FL bay (and sat phone if we plan on motoring all the way to the everglades). It's best to the DIY day _after_ taking a guide out for a day, just so you have the hang of it after learning from the guide, and maybe even a few tips on where to find fish, but it's not terribly hard, you can chum up snappers near most mangrove islands, and you can find the baitfish just keeping an eye out for birds swarming over the water. You can usually chum up some action ocean side as well, or just hit the channels around the tides. Pay attention to low tide, especially in the bay, you can get yourself ran aground easily if you don't pay attention there. If you're out there when it's low, you need decent charts to know where to drive. Not hard though, we just bought the charts for down there and plugged them in with a SD drive on our normal humminbird screen and it worked great plugged into the 12v on the rental boat. We've rented everything from smaller skiffs, bay boats to 34' center consols (not ideal for backcountry), I recommend trying to pay extra for a higher quality and reliable bay boat or skiff, there's a lot of junk out there for rent that I wouldn't trust far back in the bay. 

As for DIY fishing, keep it simple, fresh shrimp and squid on a jig is a huge go to and can catch tons of stuff down there, or you can go artificial, a green and white bucktail jig, soft baits or streamer on a fly rod can catch mostly anything down there, as can a flashy jerk bait. My favorite for bait tho is a whole fresh shrimp on a jig head, and favorite for artificial is just a white and green bucktail jig with some shrimp scent on it. For larger fish like tarpon, baracuda, sharks, etc, you'll want larger bait fish like mullet, ballyhoo or pinfish, or even grunts on a larger hook, which you can buy frozen, catch with a net or, or, easiest for me as far as taking gear down there goes, catch them with a sabiki rig. Fish the larger bait fish stuff under a float hopefully in some current, not too complicated. So much to do down there!


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## 6Speed (Mar 8, 2013)

DIY fishing in the Keys...my version.

What I do is hire a very reputable charter for a half day the first day I arrive. Yea, it burns some coin but I find out whats the pattern, baits, general locations (GPS?), Etc. After that I rent a boat and go myself. It's been a good plan for years but the weather and seas rule. I do love the Florida Keys! Can't wait until my next trip.


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