Bahia Honda, Bogie Channel, Gulf: Catches Year Round
One of the jack crevalle the author and his son, Matt, caught in the face of the Gulf.
Another New Jersey Federated Sportsmen’s News article of mine, from the New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs.
Reasonable Prices
The Florida Keys are worth every cent, affordable for almost anyone. You can load rods into tubes designed for airline travel and fly to Fort Lauderdale, Miami…or Key West. Just make sure to review airline length restrictions regarding those tubes. At the airport, rent an inexpensive sedan and drive to Big Pine Key. My family has stayed at Old Wooden Bridge Cottages and Marina on two summer occasions, once during the winter, and we never issued a single complaint. Even the summer heat and humidity we found bearable.
Not only is housing affordable. In 2012, we rented a 23-foot Mako center-console powered by 150 horsepower from Quality Boats on Marathon Key. The cost now for three days is a little over a grand plus tax and gas. A boat that big will get you out beyond the reef, but strictly for the inshore fishing this article focuses on, you can rent a smaller boat for less money or fish from bridges. The Marathon outfit delivered our boat by trailer. No one seems to do that now, but you can rent one from Old Wooden Bridge. Plenty of charter and guide services are available up and down the Keys, too.
My wife, Patricia, hatched the Keys idea. We first came in August 2007 and caught a variety of snapper species, a black grouper, and grunts from Bogie Channel Bridge where the cottages and marina situate. Our son, Matt, eight at the time, hooked a four-foot barracuda on a Bomber jerkbait snapped onto 10-pound test and retrieved on a medium-power spinning rod. It leapt six feet high three times before severing the line against a bridge pillar. At night, Matt subdued a four-and-a-half-foot bonnethead shark using a surf rod.
Bahia Honda and Bogie Channel
Red grouper just short of keeper size caught by trolling down the middle of Bogie Channel.
Under Bogie Channel Bridge—shallows to 18-foot depths—fish are available all year. Tarpon as big as 150 pounds get caught, which boaters find themselves in better position to fight. Stand-up rods with conventional reels hold them, but I’ve heard plenty of stories about spinning rod duals lasting as long as three hours. Light spinning tackle is appropriate for smaller species when fishing by boat the 22-foot depths of nearby Bahia Honda. Although I have no doubt anglers who regularly fish the salt could show me plenty of other tackle options to improve our game there, my son and I enjoyed non-stop action from snappers, grunts, small groupers, and other species using monofilament as light as six-pound test. Bar jacks schooling in moderate-size pods passed through swiftly, powered by pelagic physiology, streaking every which way when hooked. You’re fortunate to get two in the boat measuring about 16 inches before they’re gone.
Yellow tail snappers are everywhere, and delicious when you catch some keepers.
Notice the dorsal fin spike on the triggerfish. They’re also delicious.
Lane snappers are also abundant and tasty, this one a keeper.
Pork fish, delicious and attractive, can be live-lined for barracuda.
The only Bermuda chub we caught, and we didn’t know what species until we looked it up in a Florida Fishes guide. I don’t recommend eating this species, and I tell you from experience.
Small bar jack. We caught one or two 16 inches long.
We also tried various spots in Bogie Channel, always scoring an assortment of scrappy saltwater panfish including trigger fish, stunning yellow pork fish, a Bermuda chub, yellowtail snappers, lane snappers, mangrove snappers, grunts, porgies, and bar jacks on both live and frozen shrimp. While trolling Cuda Tubes, Bombers and Thundersticks, none of these lures took on any tooth scars, but summer is not barracuda season. I caught a 22-incher on a #9 Rapala while wading under the bridge. It put any pickerel the same size to shame.
My son, Matt, with a cero mackerel. I’m fascinated in the gold markings on this species, as well as , otherwise, on Spanish mackerel.
Some anglers target Cero mackerel by trolling Clarkspoons. The key to this approach is spotting birds snatching fish as a school of cero works them. Cero average about three pounds, some weighing over five. Trolling for them is a specialized method, requiring time and gas money. If you want to relax and catch a lot of fish, anchor and fish shrimp and cut bait on size 4 and 2 hooks weighted with large spit shots or egg sinkers. Enough weight to get down quickly without killing play is all you need. Cero might suddenly cut in on the fun. Matt caught one of them. They’re faster than barracuda. He was fortunate to hook the fish with the tie loop outside the mouth, though, so although additional tackle items might include wire leaders, I don’t recommend them. It’s almost certain the eyesight is as keen as the Spanish mackerel’s. No one uses wire to catch them, because they’re like leader shy trout. But possibly a rod rigged and at the ready with a speed jig like the Deadly Dick is a good idea.
More to Do Than You’ll Think
My wife, Trish, aboard the Mako we rented during August 2012.
Inshore fishing depends on what you want to do; far more is possible than this article can cover, and online research before you go will not only help, I think it’s essential. Matt and I kept it simple. We took one rod tube aboard the plane, so the number of rods we used was limited, and besides, as much as we did involve ourselves with various tackle approaches, I was more interested in slowing down and letting my work life go. I relaxed as completely as possible, succeeding at that better than I ever have since I lived at the Jersey Shore during the 1980’s.
The channels allow the sampling of spots by anchoring here and there. Where we fished deeper than about 10 feet, we always found at least some fish. When I got bored with little ones, I cut some grunts into square pieces of about an inch or two. Small fish let the bait be, and though we caught fewer fish by comparison, groupers of nearly two-and-a-half-pounds fought hard. Bahia Honda depths and the channels hold larger. Six-pound test allowed snappers and grunts to give honest accounts of themselves, but especially if you use larger pieces of cut bait, the best of what you hook might not give at all on tackle that light.
Don’t forget that fishing from the bridges is productive, and also tantalizing for what you might hook too big to bring up. A barracuda of at least 10 pounds I called a catch in 2007, though I broke it off, rather than used a drop-net. Someone I know from work told me he fished the broken bridge at Bahia Honda, where his uncle broke off a hundred-pound grouper.
Mind Boating Safety and Use the Boat to Best Advantage
If you rent a boat, mind safety. The anchor line aboard the Mako we rented was not cleated. When pushed by wind, tidal current in Bahia Honda Channel seems more powerful than the flow I’ve observed of the Lower Mississippi at New Orleans. Throwing anchor only to see the end of the rope whisk over the gunwale would amount to a disaster if the boat slammed badly against a bridge pillar. Also, between Bogie Channel and Bahia Honda Channel you cross shallow flats. Polarized sunglasses help you spot any coral head visible in clear water that may damage or destroy a lower unit. Running aground is no fun, either. Inshore waters are fair game for boaters without much experience, but research beforehand, put into practice what you learn, and operate consciously.
I mentioned trolling for cero earlier, but a different form of trolling, flatline trolling of diving plugs you might otherwise use for largemouth bass, produces plenty of groupers, though we caught none larger than 19 inches long. It works in Bahia Honda, but also works by running right up the middle of Bogie Channel.
Inshore waters near the mouth of the Gulf offered us great fishing for jack crevalle up to about three-and-a-half pounds during January 2020. They hit soft plastics three or four inches long on banana jigs. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the brand of those soft plastics, but someone from Key West made and sold them.
The Navionics app put us on those jacks. I never used the device, leaving the search to my son, but man. He did find a good spot. For a little while, it was fish on every cast. A section of channel deeper than surrounding waters held them. All we had to do was cast to the edge where shallows dropped off.
Try to Keep it Simple
If you keep it simple, marveling at the colorful variety of catches, putting some legal-size fish aside to use as cut bait—and definitely to feast on for dinner—you can’t help but succeed abundantly any time of year. It’s really exciting!
Stay tuned, because I’ll post about the fishing out beyond the reef soon. In 2020, I mounted Penn Fathom high-speed jigging reels to Shimano Trevala jigging rods. We fished beyond the reef. We know the reef itself is loaded with fish, because not only did we catch scads of smaller species there in 2007, we snorkeled among the coral in 2012.
I will probably also post more on the Keys in 2027, since friends and I plan on going down during the winter and jigging out beyond the reef. If wind forbids our getting out there a day or two, we’ll fish inshore. I’d like to hook a tarpon, and I think I know how to do it now—with cut bait. But during January, there are fewer tarpon around. The fishing for them is weather dependent, warmer spells drawing them into the channels.
Even so, I have absolutely nothing against jack crevalle, and it’s possible we’ll run into a few considerably larger than Matt and I caught. They fight harder than hybrid stripers from Lake Hopatcong here in New Jersey.
Regarding the depths beyond the reef, I never forget the lightening-fast fish that stuck in 2007. I put out a ballyhoo. It drifted about 25-feet down in 80 feet of water. Whatever slammed it—probably a wahoo—made my heavy-power, 11-foot surf rod feel like a noodle. I felt shocked at how fast 50 yards of monofilament peeled off the spool before it broke.