Home Is Where the Harbor Is All-season action in the heart of Key West. Those days Key West was Cayo Hueso, a real paradise,” says native Conch Armando Parro about his youth in Key West in the Forties. ... [+] Full Article
Chum bag from a bridge attracts snappers and other fish.
David Still, of The Tackle Box, had also given us the report on Seven Mile and Bahia Honda, our two best prospects in the Middle Keys. “We catch hogfish, at least a few a week though May, into the first part of June,” he said. “You can get them on hook and line if you put a live shrimp right in front of their face. People on the bridge actually have a better shot at them than people casting from boats. We also get some big, 7- and 8-pound mangroves on live mullet and shrimp, and keeper grouper, and good size lane snapper, up to three pounds.”
Of course, there are also jack crevalle, barracuda, grunts, needlefish and remoras who love these bridges, too.
Approaching Seven Mile (M.M. 46.5), we stopped for more live bait, chum and advice at The World Class Angler (M.M. 49). There, Halsey told us, “If you could devise an accurate tide table for this area, with all its bridges and shorelines, you’d be a millionaire. Also, the tarpon bite moves around from night to night. We know because all through the spring, we sponsor tournaments, and we get the reports. One night it’s at Seven Mile, the next Bahia Honda. It’s unpredictable.”
The Road to the Continent’
At 154 miles from Miami to Key West, U.S. 1 follows the Florida Keys archipelago and spans the sea between islands. It’s kind of a geological lesson on the go, since that archipelago is nothing but the remains of a reef that died a hundred thousand years ago when water levels dropped and exposed it. The pieces of shell and coral at the shoulders aren’t just decoration; they’re bits of prehistory lying around.
Not until 1938 did one continuous road make the trip possible without the use of car ferries between some Keys, and U.S. 1 tells the story, with visible remaining artifacts, of the slow, and sometimes doomed, incursions into the Keys over land.
In 1905, Key West had the highest population of any South Florida city, and Henry Flagler, former partner of Rockefeller and a major developer of Palm Beach, had the idea of a railroad to get there from Miami. To build, Flagler’s Railroad took seven years, 17 miles of bridges, hundreds of lives lost to storms and accidents, and 4,000 workers at any one time. By 1915, the line’s “Havana Special” took passengers to Cuba by a combination of rail and ferries. To destroy it took only one hurricane—on Labor Day weekend in 1935, which killed 500 workers and caused enough damage to shut down the railroad.
Its bridges were used in the construction of the two earlier versions of U.S. 1. Today three of those bridges, designated National Historic Sites, still stand at Long Key, the Seven Mile bridge, and Bahia Honda. As you drive the current and third version of U.S. 1, which was completed in 1982, you can see the old bridges right alongside. The old Seven Mile Bridge is a good place to take in the views and get a break from the drive.
To some, U.S. 1 might look seedy, nothing but bait shops, beer stores and boat yards, the ragged edges of a maritime culture clinging to its mainland artery, a more or less accurate perception. The true allure of the road, to me at least, lies in the way it cuts between oceans and the land, where so many people live perched like ospreys in their nests, exposed to the mercy of the elements, but nonetheless very much at home.
Given its mix of driving thrills, design and construction ingenuity, the country that it passes and the stories that it tells, U.S. 1 is right up there with the best roads in the States, along with California’s Pacific Highway, U.S. 10 through the Atchafalaya Swamp, and the Blue Ridge Parkway. —D.C.
Undaunted, we made it to Seven Mile Bridge. Several families were spending the weekend there, by the water. They had taken the afternoon off from fishing, to play on the grassy area, and later, they cleaned the morning’s catch, decent mangroves. After they ate, they returned to fish during the sunset and night bite. We caught a couple of mangroves, too, but we quit before the big fish would come through at night.
In the Lower Keys, numerous dedicated fishing bridges offer close access to the water and chances at tarpon, sharks, snappers and permit. Especially in winter, look for schools of pilchards along the banks to cast-net for bait. A few bridges span water too shallow to fish at low tide, so go for those over deeper channels. Opportunities include Little Duck Missouri Channel (M.M. 40), Ohio Missouri Channel (M.M. 39), Ohio Bahia Honda Channel (M.M. 38), and two bridges at Bahia Honda (M.M. 37), U.S.1 and the old U.S.1 bridge in Bahia Honda State Park. No Name Key Bridge, off U.S. 1 between Big Pine and No Name Key, has a deep middle channel, and less fishing pressure than others, said Phil at Jig’s Bait and Tackle (M.M. 30.3 Gulfside) in Cudjoe.
The next morning, at Spanish Harbor Channel (M.M. 33), a dedicated fishing bridge, we had an extremely hard outgoing tide, and had trouble not getting rocked up, which is the curse of bridge angling. With our light tackle, we were at the mercy of those currents. Carl Nystrom, down from West Palm Beach, who’d fished there earlier and managed a few good snappers, mangrove and yellowtail, came over and gave us his homemade chum, made from oats, menhaden oil, bread, a can of tuna, and whole finger mullet which he cast-nets. We dropped the chum at the base of the pilings, and the snappers rose to it. He and his friends also used a chumbag lowered to the water with a long rope tied to the bridge.
We skipped Niles (M.M. 26) and Kemp (M.M. 24), both tarpon hotspots in the spring and summer, and headed for Bow Channel (M.M. 21), a.k.a. “the K.O.A.” bridge, on the last of the outgoing. It’s a 40-foot-high fishing bridge, over water 10 to 20 feet deep, whose pilings hold good-size gray snapper. We also watched a few hundred-pound tarpon cruise out from the bridge under us in the crystal clear water. Our snapper action waned when the tide slacked off.
Closer to Key West, the Saddlebunch Bridges between M.M. 16 and 19 are over fairly shallow water, but aptly named Shark Key Channel (M.M. 15), has a good, deep channel. Hammerheads occasionally munch tarpon here. Boca Chica Bridge (M.M. 13), is the last big bridge before Key West.
At Boca Chica, ballyhoo and snappers swarmed our chumline off the bridge embankments. On the first cast, a large fish took a shrimp on a good strong run, at least a hundred yards, before it shook the hook. We tried for it again and again, but it didn’t return, or at least not before our trip had to end.
That big fish eluded us on our short tour of the bridges. But it’s still out there for us, and for anyone else, who wants to try their luck.
Florida Sportsman; the nation's leading sport fishing magazine, is now the web's best resource for information on sport fish, conservation issues, regional fishing within Florida and all fishing gear including fishing tackle, fishing rods and reels, and boating equipment of all kinds. Florida Sportsman Online also has the most active fishing community on the web - share your fishing tales with new friends today.
OUR NETWORK: IMOUTDOORS WEBSITES
