Best Place to stay in the Florida Keys: Best Bridge Fishing

[MichiganSalt]

I was thinking about taking a fishing trip to the Florida keys with a bunch of friends. 'm from Michigan, and I normally do my fishing in Boca Grande...I'm an avid shark fisherman as well as enjoy taking tarpon, snook, and macks. I've never caught a barracuda, and i've read they're all over the keys in december. True? If so, whats your best bat and rig? Best place to shark fish in the keys? Lady fish, the best bait?

I plan on taking the trip in late December or early January. I'm either looking for a camping spot with close fishing access or a cheap hotel with an onsite fishing pier. I'm looking for a place that I can go with my friends, have fun, catch some big fish, and make some memories. Could any of you guys be kind enough to aim me in the right direction? Thanks in advance for the help!

Tight Lines.

MichSalt

[drago4951]

Both Long Key and Bahia Honda have camp sites on the water. I was just in long key last week. My tent was 20 feet from the water. Both are within a few minutes access to fishing bridges.

[N1ck]

I can help you out on bait choices thats about it, i always wanted to but never went to the keys

For cudas you can get a tube lure, or free line a runner/jack.

For macks i would just use a spoon/ a shiny gotcha.

For sharks if you have heavy gear try hooking a ray first and just drop a wing of a ray right next to the bridge, a big fish head would work, for me the best would be a king head. If you have a spinner just use any chunk of fish that are around that area.

[robwas]

I agree with the post above, Long Key and Bahia Honda are your two best bets in the Keys. I have personally camped in both of them and also some private campgrounds in the Keys (Knights Key and the KOA (old location) Florida's state parks are the way to go, not only are they cheaper but also you're not on top of other campers as much. My first time camping in long key was over 20 years ago, quite a bit has changed since they, they built new bathrooms with giant lights on them after Wilma came through and they also cut down all the Australian Pines that used to make beautiful shade there. Definitely bring your own shade and a wind break if you're going to camp in Long Key. As far as the water behind Long Key I've walked out probably a half a mile and it's very shallow, all I ever saw out there are sharks and needlefish but supposedly it's a good bonefishing area if that's your thing. Personally I fish the bridges for eating type fish (and the occasional shark) and Long Key bridge is excellent, in fact we used to bike to it with a tow behind cart from Long Key and not even drive. One thing I will suggest for either Long Key or Bahia Honda is make your reservation EARLY. Both parks can get really filled up and they don't have that many walkup campsites available so if you know when your're going log onto reserveamerica.com and secure a site or you may not be camping in either of them. We always went for an entire month so trying to get 14 day blocks was nearly impossible once the parks went to the online reservation system. As far as baits go I think shrimp catches just about everything.... I've even gotten a 6' lemon shark on a shrimp but the small fish can be a real hassle when fishing shrimp because you'll burn through them very fast. The best technique I found is using small jigheads and freelining such baits. To catch barracuda those orange tube lures seem to really work and while on that subject barracuda or yellow jacks are supposed to be some of the best shark baits but I found pretty much any kind of dead meat on the bottom catches them, especially at the ebb tide (high or low)

Good luck and hope you enjoy the trip, we certainly loved camping at both the mentioned campgrounds. If you can't find a spot in either of them I'd say Knights Key wasn't bad for a last minute choice, they always seem to have spots but again not nearly as nice.

Rob