Key West Guppy Hatch

The past couple mornings have greeted us with flat calm conditions and guppy hatches. We have been tearing up tarpon that are actively feeding on the small baitfish coming off the flats. Fish of all sizes are mixed together so each cast could result in a baby tarpon under 30 pounds or a giant tarpon well over 100 pounds.

I fished with Melissa from Texas this morning. Melissa wanted to go for tarpon on fly. Well her timing was perfect and so are the conditions. As soon as we set up a group of tarpon rolled near the boat. I grabbed the fly rod from the rod rack and quickly stripped out a bunch of line. No time to get organized, Melissa quickly shot some line across water. A few quick strips and a monster tarpon over 100 pounds grabbed her fly and greyhounded across the water. After about fifteen minutes of tug-o-war the line parted. That was actually a good thing because we would have missed the entire guppy hatch fighting that one fish.

We got back into position and Melissa hooked three more tarpon landing about a forty pound tarpon on a gurgler for her first official Key West tarpon.

The hatch was short lived and we moved to another area. We we're greeted by more rolling tarpon and Melissa was soon hooked up with another fish. This one about thirty five pounds and it jumped like crazy.

Congratulations to Melissa on a fine morning of tarpon fishing in Key West. We are out again tomorrow morning for hopefully more of the same.

Captain Mike Bartlett
Key West Flats & Backcountry