If you can ever go there. Go there. It was amazing. Was shuttled there on a 120 foot high speed catamaran. It made the 70 mile crossing in two hours over flat seas. Got there, set up camp under an ancient buttonwood tree that made a cool shaded canopy over our tents. We got in the kayaks and never stopped fishing for four days solid. It took about a half day to figure out the learning curve of fishing there. After that, it was bonefish and tarpon all day long... one after the other. As an added plus, the tarpon were smallish (about 75 pounds average) and the bonefish were HUGE (8 to 10 pounds average.) When we were done with tarpon and bonefish each day, we would cast a top-water under some mangroves and consistently pull out several enormous mangrove snappers for dinner... and when I say enormous, I mean enormous, like 24 inches plus. Absolutely delicious. Fort Jefferson was definitely cool. There's one NPS ranger on the island who doesn't really care what you do, so long as you're being cool about things. That was nice. But the camping is primitive with only compost toilets and no fresh water. I smelled like a filthy hippie when I was done. All in all, it was great. I highly recommend it. Probably not a good trip for small kids. There's a million and one ways to kill yourself there and the closest medical treatment is Key West or Havana. I'll post some pics in a day or two.
Catch and release for the most part I suppose? That's a whole lot of fish to eat clean and eat if not.
Tarpon and bonefish- catch and release. Snapper- catch and consume (we only kept what we needed to eat each night we were there.)
This sounds so freaking cool. I'm heading to the middle keys in a week for some fishing and diving. Can't wait to see some pictures from your trip.
:up: Awesome experience! We borrowed a couple of kayaks on Labor day and hit the lake, loved it. Going to keep an eye out for 4 of them on craigslist now. Way better than canoeing around in my opinion. Any advice on buying kayaks?
I don't have any photos as cool as these (but I'll post them later anyway.) This is the article that made me plan this trip, the photos are great and the article is very accurate of exactly how things went. http://saltyshores.com/wordpress/20...ishingcamping-the-dry-tortugas-part-2-of-2-2/ Depends on what you want it for. Fishing or just goofing around. But either way, in Florida you want a sit on top, not a sit in.
I have the tandem model of this one. To make it more fishing friendly, I bought after-market rod holders and drilled holes in the top of the hull to mount them. Added paddle holders and an anchor system. Cheap and easy stuff you can buy at Dicks or Gander Mountain. It doesn't do anything great, but does everything in an acceptable manner. http://www.perceptionsport.com/kayaks/PRS_Pescador_120
One detail I left out is the fact that there is nothing to do there at night. It was way to windy and pitch black to get on the water after dark. The island is absolutely teaming with hermit crabs. So every night, we busted out a bottle of rum and selected our racing crabs and had hermit crab races and hermit crab sumo wresting. Good times.
The only thing you were missing is a nice comfortable boat anchored off the fort to call home for the night. Love it out there! Sounds like you had a great time. Ain't that fishing the shit out there? :up:
Awesome trip...I'm jelly. Did you hook up any snook ? Damn fine fight and finer in yo belly ! Hermit crab races...you can't hide country !
Each night, right after sunset, the tarpon would bust bait up against the outside wall of the mote. There were always a couple of large snook in there with them, but we couldn't get them to eat... but not for not trying. The first night there, I took a shot at the snook with a large swim bait. A big tarpon beat the snook to it, bit it and immediately busted by 20 pound rig into several pieces of flying graphite debris.
Where are you staying? My wife and I usually just Dive only. I've been thinking more about doing some fishing and grilling in the evenings. We used to stay at the Coral Lagoon in Marathon. Haven't been there in a while. Have a fun safe trip !
