Florida Keys Fall Fishing Preview

Hard to believe fall is already around the corner. The kids go back to school, the summer crowd thins out, and Marathon settles back into itself. Traffic on the Overseas Highway eases up and many hotel rates come down. Even the restaurants have less of a wait.

The fishing, of course, doesn’t care about any of that! The fish are still here and they still have to eat. So if you have a chance to get away to the Keys, even just for a long weekend, this is a great time to do it.

The heat backs off a little too, which matters more than people expect. A summer day on the water in the Keys can wear you down by noon, if you’re anchored up in the hot sun. In the fall you get a breeze and a more forgiving sun. If you’re able to travel outside the school calendar, this is a great window to do it.

Here’s what we’ll be chasing over the next couple of months, and what you can expect if you come down and fish with us. If you want to see how the rest of the year shakes out, we keep a rundown of what bites when.

The Mahi Are Still Around

Good news heading into fall: the mahi bite hasn’t shut off yet. That’s not always the case this late in the year, and we’ll take it.

When we run offshore for them, we’re not really hunting fish so much as hunting the stuff that holds fish. A weed line that’s stayed together, a color change, a piece of floating debris, birds working over something. We’ll idle up on it, get baits in the water, and see what’s there. Mahi are opportunists, and anything that concentrates bait will concentrate them.

Yellowtail Are Our Bread and Butter

If there’s one thing we can count on this fall, it’s the yellowtail.

We love these trips. We get a chum slick going on the reef, drift baits back in it as naturally as we can, and usually it isn’t long before you’ve got fish behind the boat. It’s steady action, it’s a short run, and it’s forgiving enough that kids and first-timers do just as well as anybody. We drop bottom rods too if the current allows, plenty of mutton and mangrove snapper mixed in, and there’s always a chance a grouper decides to eat.

If you’re doing a half day reef trip with the family, this is what we’ll be doing, and you’ll go home with dinner.

We’ll Hit Some Wrecks Too

Wreck fishing is a great change of pace, and fall is a good time for it.

What we like about it is that nobody knows what’s coming up on any given drop. Amberjack, grouper, mutton snapper, and every so often something that takes off and doesn’t stop. If you’ve spent the morning on light tackle catching yellowtail and you want to feel something really pull, tell us and we’ll go put you on it.

Fair warning, a big amberjack will humble you, you might need to tag in a friend if its over 100lbs!

Blackfin on the Hump

The hump usually turns on this time of year, and it’s one of our favorite runs.

Blackfin tuna aren’t huge, but pound for pound there isn’t much that pulls harder, and the humps hold them in numbers. When the current sets up right it can be one hookup after another, and everybody on the boat gets a turn. It’s a run to get out there and it does depend on conditions, but on the right day it’s the most fun you’ll have all trip.

Fall Is Our Window for Daytime Swords

The swordfish are out there all year. They sit on the deep drop-offs in fifteen hundred feet and change, and they don’t migrate through the way the mahi and sailfish do. What changes in the fall is whether we can get to them and keep a bait where it needs to be.

Summer has the calmer seas, but the current out there rips, and fighting two or three knots of it makes holding the bottom a lot harder than it sounds. Come fall, the current backs off. That’s really the whole story. Add in the weather windows that open up between fronts and you get the best combination of the year. October in particular has a reputation around here for putting out the biggest single fish.

It’s a full day and a long ride, but it’s worth it. And once we’re out in that deep water, the swordfish aren’t the only thing worth dropping on. Queen snapper, snowy grouper, and yellowedge grouper all live down there, and they’re outstanding eating.

If a broadbill is on your list, this is the stretch to come do it, and we’d love to go try.

Then the North Winds Show Up

This is when fall really starts for us.

The first cool fronts push through, the north wind blows, and the water temperature drops a few degrees. That’s the trigger. Almost overnight the reef fills up with fish that weren’t there the week before:

Kingfish
Spanish mackerel
Cero mackerel

All three are fast, sharp-toothed, and a lot of fun on light tackle. Kingfish especially will empty a reel in a hurry the first time one eats a bait meant for something else. It happens every year and it never gets old. Don’t forget Wahoo either! Another toothy critter that shows up more in the fall and is absolutely delicious!

And Then We Wait on the Sailfish

Those same fronts start piling bait along the reef edge, and that’s what we’re all really waiting on down here.

When the ballyhoo stack up thick in the shallow water, the sailfish come in behind them. You’ll usually see it before you find it. Frigate birds dipping and working a spot, then bait showering across the surface as something pushes through underneath. We’ll have a live bait rigged and ready to pitch, because those windows don’t stay open long.

That bite builds through late fall and really peaks in the winter, but the setup starts well before then.

“Once the bait shows up thick on the edge, it’s game on,” said Captain Jason Bell. “That’s what we wait for all year.”