Light north breeze on the flats this morning, water gin-clear and a little cool for us but perfect for the fish to chew. Tides are running a moderate range, so there’s enough moving water to keep things honest without blowing you off your spot.
Sun’s easing up over the Atlantic side around 7-ish and dropping behind the Gulf just after 5:30, giving a tight but productive window of low-light feeding at first light and the last hour before dark. Midday sun is high and bright, so expect the fish to slide off the super-skinny stuff and tuck into potholes, channels, and deeper edges.
On the flats from Key Largo down through Islamorada, bonefish and permit have been active between the fronts, especially on an incoming tide over hard sand and turtle grass. Folks poling quietly are picking up a handful of bones per tide window, with a couple nicer fish mixed in and the occasional permit cruising the edges of the flats and channel mouths.
Back in the Everglades side and Florida Bay, snook and redfish have been the stars around mangrove shorelines, creek mouths, and deeper bay potholes. Decent numbers of slot reds and plenty of snook, with some overslot fish, are coming from points with good current and mullet or glass minnows spraying on the surface.
Offshore and around the reef, boats working the edge from about 80 to 200 feet are seeing mixed bags of mahi, sails, blackfin tuna and the usual kings and mackerel when the current and color lines set up right. Expect a steady pick rather than a full-on blitz, with a few flags and a box of tunas for those who stick it out and work the edges.
For lures, locals are leaning on:
- Bonefish/permit: small shrimp- or crab-pattern jigs, light-colored bucktails, and subtle soft plastics on 1/8–1/4 oz heads.
- Snook/redfish: paddle-tail swimbaits in natural baitfish colors, 3–4 inch jerk shads, and gold spoons slow-rolled along mangroves.
- Reef/offshore: small trolling feathers and skirted ballyhoo for mahi and sails, vertical jigs or speed jigs for blackfin and kings.
Best baits right now are live shrimp, pilchards, and finger mullet inshore, with live pinfish and ballyhoo doing the heavy lifting on the reef. A freelined shrimp on light leader will still out-fish most artificials for bones and reds when the water is clear and the sun is high.
Couple of hot spots to circle on the chart:
- Around Islamorada, work the flats and channel edges off Snake Creek and the local bridges for bonefish, permit, snapper, and nighttime tarpon when the tide’s pushing.
- Down Key West way, the flats west of the island and the channels around Snipe and Mud Keys are holding good numbers of bones, permit, and laid-up tarpon on those warmer, calm afternoons, while the reef line south of Sand Key is a solid bet for sails and tunas.
That’s your Keys update from Artificial Lure — thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next report. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.
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