Key West Florida Weekly

Fishing in the Keys




Captain Chris Mendola COURTESY PHOTO

Captain Chris Mendola COURTESY PHOTO

Now that the hordes of mini-season lobster hunters have finally vacated our precious island and crawled back home with their coolers full of Key West’s crustacean aquatic bounty, it’s time to dedicate our culinary attentions to the millions of other creatures that call Key West’s oceanic ecosphere home — most especially the creatures best enjoyed sautéed in a little white wine and butter and served simply with a lemon wedge and a cold glass of rosé.

In the dead of summer here in Key West, sometimes the only way to beat the heat is to pick up a rod and start fishing. Thankfully, there are infinite fishing options to please every pescatarian sportsman looking to catch his supper.

A day on the water with Farout Charters. COURTESY PHOTO

A day on the water with Farout Charters. COURTESY PHOTO

While plenty of places across the globe claim to have the best fishing on the planet, Keys residents back up their claim with a literal pupu platter of fish species thanks to Florida’s proximity to the third largest barrier reef on the planet. Each year, thousands of tourists from the farthest flung corners of the world travel here to try their luck at fishing our reefs, flats, wrecks and deep water. Mini-season aside, summer in the Keys means there’s never a bad spot to drop your anchor (or, if you’re partial to skin diving, to jump into the water) and bring up something tasty for dinner. Whether you’re set on deep dropping for queen snapper or choose to hit the wrecks for some light-tackle grouper hunting, it’s the perfect time for amateurs and angling pros to try their luck in the famously fertile waters surrounding our island. We reached out to some of the Keys’ best charter companies to find out what you should be trying to catch this summer and the best way to do it.

Jeremy Hackworth from Zia Charters. COURTESY PHOTO

Jeremy Hackworth from Zia Charters. COURTESY PHOTO

In the dozen years that Capt. Chris Mendola, owner of Far Out Charters, has been taking his clients out fishing, he’s developed a niche for himself. Mendola is the person you call when you want to catch a swordfish. The notoriously difficult-to-land billfish is known for its magnificent appearance, flaky white flesh and for being one of the best fights in the ocean — that is, if you can get hold of one. There’s a common misconception that the best way to catch one is by going out at night, says Mendola. That can deter some anglers who aren’t keen on skipping an evening at Sloppy Joe’s in favor of waiting in the dark while being tossed around by the choppy waters of the gulf. But far less important is the time of day one puts a line into the water than the depth a line is dropped to — up to 2,000 feet, to be specific. It’s a tricky, technical kind of fishing requiring heavy lead weights, particular types of belly bait, special permits, tiny strobe light and a precise method of drift catching that utilizes the natural current to avoid tangled lines. You’re not going to stumble upon this kind of fishing when you’re casting a few lines off the White Street Pier.

Mendola keeps his boat outfitted with top-of-the-line electric assist rigs, giving his customers the option to battle their prey manually towards the end of what can sometimes be a very, very long fight.

“They’re the gladiator of fish,” says Mendola, who admits an acquaintance recently spent over seven hours hauling a 489-pounder onboard. But the work is, according to any sport fisherman worth his weight in tuna, well worth the fight. The bite of a swordfish is subtle, not drastic; it takes a trained eye to spot it, which is where going out with a qualified guide comes in handy. Since it can take a few hours, it’s a great fit for anglers who’ve been out on the water enough that the shock of pulling something —anything — off the reef has worn off and who are looking for something more challenging.

While Far Out Charters offers everything from wreck fishing to spearfishing, Mendola says there’s a particular joy that comes from fishing the very bottom depths of the ocean, where the irregularities of the undersea terrain make for a terrifically diverse and surprising day of trolling the waters. And by focusing his fishing for swordfish during the day, his clients avoid pulling up a large quantity of sharks, normally a common side effect of billfish hunting at night.

“It’s one of my favorite fisheries down here because you never know what you will bring up from that deep,” says Mendola. “Every trip is special in its own way.”

In a business as difficult to predict as charter fishing, he is cavalier about why he’s content heading out on the water each day, unsure of what might be on the other side of each line he drops into the ocean.

“It’s honestly just great to meet people from around the world and take them out on the water for a good time,” he says. “I’ve made a lot of lifelong friends in this business and wouldn’t change it for a thing.”

It’s the same career satisfaction Mendola causally references that also drew Capt. Jeremy Hackworth to start his own charter business six years ago, Zia Charters. After a lifetime spent on the water working on schooners, salvage boats and running various charters for other businesses, Hackworth came to the realization that the only way to build a successful business was to build on the authenticity of his personal experiences.

“I decided to build a company based on the kind of charters I would want to book myself,” he says. He now spends most of his days focusing on what he calls the fun, casual side of fishing, mixing activities like snorkeling, eco tours, sand bar hopping and dolphin sighting into his fishing charters. The summertime, Hackworth explains, is a great time to explore the vastly different underwater worlds that surround Key West. It’s the diversity of both species of fish and types of ecosystems that sets Keys fishing apart from the rest of the world, says Hackworth. With access to shallow patch reefs, inshore channels, and deep water Atlantic, different ways of fishing are never more than a few miles away from one another.

“I don’t know of anywhere else in the world with so many options in such close proximity,” he says. “And this time of year the winds are usually calm, which allows us to explore all of them.”

Though Key West is a notoriously expensive and difficult place to run a business, Hackworth makes it a point to be the sole point of contact for his clients, a decidedly boutique approach compared to the cattle-call-type charters that many tourists find themselves stuck on during their vacation. He doesn’t have a booth on Duval manned by tawny teenagers hawking Jet-Ski trips; his business is based on word-of-mouth referrals and repeat clients looking for a deeply personalized fishing experience. For Hackworth, the process goes both ways. By interfacing with his passengers personally, he avoids the frustrating episodes (and negative reviews) that come from people being disappointed by a charter experience not matching up to the one they’d pictured in their head. “When a client gets to the dock, I know what they’re looking for and they have a good idea of how we’re going to do it.”

Hackworth especially enjoys surprising those less-than-thrilled passengers cajoled into going out on his charter by their loved ones, the “Just letting you know I don’t like to fish but my dad/ boyfriend/wife is forcing me to come out today” types.

“What I get the biggest kick out of is showing spouses or kids that weren’t enthusiastic how fun it can be,” he says. “There’s nothing like a young person catching their first fish, or anyone saying how they ‘always thought fishing was boring before’ getting out on the water with Zia.”

Like Mendola, Hackworth is keen to recommend summertime reef and wreck fishing for those new to the sport, as the rewards — in both excitement and the diversity of catches — can be impressive. Throw in a guided tour of the backcountry wilderness and you’ve got a recipe for a uniquely memorable day. And while the well-stocked flats around Key West offer practically guaranteed success year-round, it’s during the summer when the fishing there reaches its explosive peak with great opportunities for anglers of all levels to fight bonefish, permit and tarpon.

For those more experienced sport anglers, Hackworth says summer in the Keys is the best time to try for those famously fun-to-fight pelagic species such as mahi-mahi and wahoo. And if it’s a drawn-out battle you’re after (and you’ve already snagged a swordfish or two), now’s the time to get out onto the water and try your luck at hooking a blue marlin, whose tremendous strength offers an awesome fight for anyone lucky enough to snare one.

Summertime in the Keys typically means you’re in for days of blisteringly hot sun, punctuated with the occasional afternoon thunderstorms that often knock out the power for a little while. It doesn’t take much for the island to flood, but those particularly dedicated drinkers can rest assured that kayaking to the Green Parrot will put you right alongside a group of seasoned locals, for whom the phrase “rain or shine” takes on a very literal meaning. But, temperamental weather aside, there’s really no better time to visit the Florida Keys. With fewer crowds and more active ocean life, it’s the perfect time to spend a few days cooling your face with an ocean breeze or two. Load up on the SPF, pack twice as much water as you need (no, beer does not count as water, though countless bro-oriented websites will undoubtedly claim the contrary) and get some lines in the water. Dinner tastes infinitely better when it’s freshly caught anyway. ¦

4 responses to “Fishing in the Keys”

  1. Pason Gaddis says:

    I love fishing in the Keys. Was just down there in July and limited out on Dolphin!

  2. Pason Gaddis says:

    I love fishing in Key West!

  3. Pason Gaddis says:

    Who is a good guide in Key West?

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