A FISH FRY IN KEY WEST
By Mike Yurk
The wind blows steadily across the ocean and the waves boiled. The skies are blue and it is chilly in the early morning with the wind coming off the ocean. The smell of salt water is in the air. We are standing on a pier waiting for our fishing boat to pick us up. All in all it is a nice day to get a fish fry.
A few days earlier Bruce and Kelly Gervais of Lakeland, Minn., Kelly’s sister Jan Holmes of Rosemount, Minn., and my wife Becky and I of Hudson, Wisconsin gathered in Key West to trade winter for several days of ocean breezes and palm trees. It is cool in the morning as Bruce, Jan and I wait to go fishing. Kelly and Becky elected to stay back at the resort pool.
We see a fishing boat coming our way and it pulls up to a dock. A young man introduces himself as Captain Nick and says “let’s go fishing.”
The boat is a thirty six foot fishing boat called the Coolcast. Captain Nick is thirty five years old and has been a captain on charter fishing boats for ten years.
Key West drops behind us as Captain Nick heads the boat out into the ocean. He runs over twenty miles out to where the skyline of Key West is just a speck on the horizon and drops the anchor in about thirty feet of water.
The fishing is fairly simple. We string a chunk of cut bait on a jig and just cast it out, letting the current drift it out from the side of the boat. We are using spinning rods that aren’t much heavier than the spinning rods we use back home in Wisconsin and Minnesota for bass and walleyes.
Bruce is the first to get a fish. His rod tip is bouncing as we hear the drag on his reel giving off line. The fish made a short run but Bruce is able to get the fish coming back towards the boat and a couple of moments later Nick extends the gaff and pulls in a red snapper. It is the first fish to go into the ice chest and the first fish towards our fish fry.
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| Bruce Gervais shows off one of the two red snappers that he caught. | Jan Holmes displays the grouper that she caught. |
The boat is rolling in the waves and we jam our knees into the side of the boat to steady ourselves as we fish. The wind tears at our hats. My bait is drifting off the side of the boat and I am stripping it off the reel by hand with the bail left open when I feel it come alive. Line is tearing out as a fish is running. I flip over the bail on the reel and the line comes snug against the reel and my spinning rod is bent in half. There is no need to set the hook as the fish is on solidly. My drag begins to click off line as I am wrestling with the fish. I turn the fish and start getting it coming closer when it runs off again. This goes back and forth for a minute but finally I see the fish, silvery in the clear water. I don’t need the gaff.
I pull the fish in, hauling it into the boat. It is a yellowtail snapper. It is smaller fish then Bruce’s red snapper but they are delicious and my favorite salt water fish for eating. I twist the hook out of the fish and shuffle along the side of the boat to where the ice chest is and drop it in. To me the yellowtail tastes similar to the walleyes that I am familiar with from my northern lakes.
A few minutes later Jan has a fish on. Her spinning rod is bouncing in her hand as the fish tears off, rod bent in half. It is a short but spectacular fight before we see the fish in the clear water. Nick helps her get it in and takes the hook out, dropping it into the ice chest. We are getting closer to our fish fry later tonight.
Most of the fish are yellowtail snappers. They do not seem any larger than the walleyes I catch back in Wisconsin and Minnesota but they put up a stronger fight then any comparable size freshwater fish. Perhaps these fish are stronger because they battle those powerful currents in the ocean every day.
There are a bewildering number of choices in finding a charter boat. The one we are fishing on I found on line. I just put in Key West fishing in a Google search and had a number of charters to choose from. This worked very well for us.
Another good way to find a charter is to ask at the desk of the motel or resort where you are staying. They normally know of a number of good guides and charters. Also ask at any of the many bait and fishing shops around town. The motels, resorts, bait and sport shops can usually recommend a good guide or boat.
I personally suggest staying away from the street vendors found along Duval Street that are selling sport packages and tours. Duval is the main street for tourism and shopping in Key West. The one and only bad fishing experience I have had in Key West came from signing up for a day of fishing through one of them on our first visit to Key West some twelve years ago.
There are essentially three types of charters. One is deep sea trolling for fish such as tuna, dorado, sailfish, wahoo and other bigger fish. There is flats fishing for such fish as permit, bonefish, snook and other shallow feeding fish. Then there is going to reefs and wrecks for snappers, groupers and other eating fish. With the exception of dorado and tuna most of the fish normally caught in flats fishing or deep sea fishing are not considered eating fish. However, those can provide you the opportunity for a trophy fish and a memory of a lifetime. We had elected to fish the reefs and wrecks because we planned on having a fish fry later that night.
Captain Nick rigs up a heavier casting rod with a heavy sinker and puts a minnow on a hook. It looks like a little heavier version of the bait rigs I use for walleye back home. The bait fish is hooked through the lip. I have done this countless times before. I move to the front of the boat and drop the rig to the bottom, jigging it up and down as if I were fishing for walleyes.
I feel a powerful force on the end of the line and this heavy casting rod is bent in half. As heavy a rod as this is I am amazed that this fish can bend it over. It puts up a tenacious, steady fight until I have it alongside the boat and Nick reaches over with a gaff, pulling the fish in. It is a two foot long grouper, heavy and powerful. It goes into the ice chest.
At the back of the boat Bruce’s spinning rod is bent in half and the rod tip is plunging as a fish is racing off. Nick slides along the side of the boat to the back, waiting with the gaff. The fish is running strong and we can hear the drag clicking off line. Bruce turns the fish but it keeps racing off until he finally gets it next to the boat and Nick reaches down with the gaff. It is another large red snapper and gets deposited in the ice chest. I look into the ice chest and there is a pile of fish in there. There is no doubt what we are having for dinner tonight.
Jan is now standing at the front of the boat and the heavy casting rod is bowed as a fish is charging away. She is holding on tightly while cranking on the large casting reel. The fish pulls off line and Jan stops it and starts to get line back on the reel when the fish races off again. It is back and forth as we watch Jan fight the fish. Captain Nick stands next to her, waiting with the gaff. We see a large brown object in the water as Nick leans over extending the gaff hook, hooks the fish and brings it in. It is another large grouper. Jan smiles proudly as I take her photo then she drops it into the ice chest.
Most of the charters offer a half day of fishing (four hours), a three quarters day (six hours) and a full day of fishing (eight hours). Prices seem to average $600 for a half day, $900 for a three quarters day and over $1000 for a full day. In the years that I have been fishing in Key West I have seen prices climb mostly due to increases in fuel costs.
The length of the charter also includes running time out and back from your fishing spot. Generally it takes between twenty minutes to half an hour to get out where the fishing is. That means for a charter you could lose up to an hour of fishing time getting out and coming back in. On a half day charter that could mean that could lose almost a quarter of your time just running out and getting back in. Per hour the most cost effective charter is the whole day option but that could mean for a long day if the ocean is rough. I have found that the three quarter day charter makes for the best of both worlds. You should get about five hours of fishing time which should be enough to get all the fish you want and still have some of the day left once you get back to the dock.
The charters will provide all of the fishing equipment you will need and it has been my experience that they use good gear. They will also provide all the bait and ice that is needed. You only need to bring your lunch and drinks.
Also it is good idea to bring sunscreen and apply it often. It is amazing how powerful that sun can be on the ocean. Additionally I recommend that you use Dramamine or some other sea sickness medicine. I use Dramamine both the night before and in the morning when I first wake up before going fishing on the ocean. Wear or bring along a long sleeve shirt, sweater or jacket. Although it might be warm on land, the breezes can be chilly once you get out on the ocean.
Later in the afternoon Jan is casting off the back of the boat when a fish explodes on her bait and she feels it tearing off as if she just hooked onto a submarine. We all stop to watch. The fish is powerful and it takes off line quickly before Jan can stop it. By this time the fish is some distance from the boat and the spinning rod and line are straining as the fish grudgingly starts to come closer. It is a see-saw battle but slowly Jan is getting more line back on the reel then what she is losing each time the fish runs off. Finally we see a sleek silver fish in the water and Nick gaffs it. The fish is a Spanish mackerel. More photos are taken before Jan slips it back overboard into the water.
It is getting toward the end of our charter and we are tired and beat up by the wind and waves. We drink water, bottles cold and sweating from the ice chest. The sun is relentless and I can feel my face turning red. I should have put on sun screen.
The line on my reel shoots off and the spinning rod is bent in half. The drag on the reel is singing as the fish tears line off. There seems to be no stopping this fish. Line keeps peeling off and I can’t get the fish to slow down. This seems to go on for some time. Nick races to the front of the boat and unhooks the anchor, attaching a large, red floating ball to the anchor line.
“Do we need to chase after it?” He yells at me. Finally I feel the fish begin to slow down as it is pulling against the drag.
“I do not think we will need to,” I tell him. The wind and waves are drifting us away from the anchor. I turn the fish but each time I start to get some line back on the reel the fish tears off again, pulling line off the reel to start all over again.
The fish charges off again, this time turning towards the front of the boat. I shuffle forward keeping my knees in contact with the side of the boat. It dives, tearing off more line and I can see the line cutting through the water, now crossing the bow of the boat. Thankfully Nick had freed us from the anchor or else I would have lost the fish as it would have gotten tangled in the anchor rope. I move to the bow and the fish is still running but I feel like I am winning. Now it is running on the other side of the boat and I ease myself along the side of the boat keeping the fish in front of me.
Finally we can see the fish. It looks blue in the water. Each time I seem to get it closer to the boat it races off. I stop it, turn the fish and start getting it coming back to just see it race off again. It is getting closer. Just a few more feet. The fish moves off, again pulling line off the reel, but now I turn it easily. It is coming closer. The fish pulls away but this time I can stop it with pressure from the rod and the fish doesn’t take line off the reel. Nick sticks out the gaff and quickly brings it up and the fish comes splashing out of the water and into the boat. It is a bonito, a member of the tuna family. Bonitos are just torpedoes of massive muscle that can shoot through the water. A photo is taken and the fish is put back in the ocean.
The author, Mike Yurk, holding the bonito that was one of our last fish for day when fishing at Key West.
It is midafternoon and time to go back in. At one point we pass a rotting wreck of what was once a boat, the ribs of the boat sticks up naked out of the sea. We see Key West grow larger as we get closer. We have two grouper, two red snappers and twenty yellowtail snappers. Plus with the other fish that we threw back we guess that we probably caught about fifty fish altogether. It is a good day of fishing.
The five of us walk to the Half Shell Raw Bar. We drop the bag of fillets on the bar and order drinks. The bartender takes the bag, disappearing into the kitchen.
Key West is a fishing town and many of the restaurants will cook your fish. Our favorite is the Half Shell Raw Bar. Here they will prepare your fish for ten dollars per pound of fillets. They will cook the fish deep fried, blackened or broiled and add boiled round potatoes, corn on the cob and coleslaw. The Half Shell Raw Bar is noted for its seafood and is happy to cook your catch from your day of fishing. If you are going to go to another restaurant on the island it is recommended to check with them if they will cook your fish before you just show up with a bag of fillets.
The prize of the day. A dinner of freshly caught fish from the ocean.
A couple of drinks later we are motioned to a table. They put two platters of fish in front of us; one deep fried and the other blackened, and bowls of coleslaw, round potatoes and corn on the cob. It was a great fish fry, made even better by knowing that just a few hours earlier we were catching those fish on the ocean.