Capt. Mike Bartlett
Key West Fishing Charters
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends. For me and my wife it’s a pretty laid back time hanging out with the dogs and maybe try to get a couple small projects done during our time off. Both of our families are way up north where it’s usually cold and snowy, so a few phone calls Christmas morning to chat and brag about how warm and sunny it is down here in Key West is our thing. Otherwise we eat lots of food and watch football or movies and if it’s nice outside, we might take a little boat ride.
Due to email issues I was not aware of, I never received an error message and my January article sat in my outbox. For all intents and purposes, this information still applies to February. We really don’t see a major shift in the weather and our fishing until about the middle of March when we finally start warming up in a significant manner.
Now that the holidays are behind us and we start the new year, I like to reflect on the past year of fishing. Now I’m not one these ultra goal oriented types where I take note of everything little thing and review those notes at the end of year to see where and how I can improve 1% during the upcoming year. I get it, it works for a lot of successful people, especially in other areas like finance and sports to name a couple.
To me, there are too many variables in this game of fishing that are out of my control to say I want to hit a specific metric. I will take a moment, think about it and write out here. Then look forward to upcoming season with the hope we have good weather, good fishing and lots of business.
Besides, I’m more of a grinder. I take what I can get, bust my backside to have a good day on the water and hope at the end of the day my clients had some fun and want to come back and fish again. Whether that’s with me or someone else doesn’t matter, my goal each trip is for whomever I fished with to want to come back and do it again.
Looking back over the course of 2025 I would have to say that it was a really good year overall. We had some of the best weather during the month of May than we have had in a long time and the tarpon fishing was really good as a result. It always seems to blow over 20 mph everyday in May and we have to fight the clouds. Usually end up sitting on a white spot waiting for tarpon to come through, which is fine but when that’s our only play it gets boring really fast unless the fish are streaming through at a good pace.
We had a lot of sun last year, it was incredible. I check the weather everyday and we had so many days where the forecast called for partly cloudy or intervals of clouds and sun (which translates to cloudy) and it ended up being sunny. Don’t get me wrong, we still had some awful days too, just not as many.
I remember one awful day last April, we had few storms pop up before dawn so we ended up waiting them out for a bit. As the weather cleared we made our way out staying close, just outside the marina in case the storms started again. Well they got me real good.
As the sun came up and I could see the sky better things were looking up. The radar was clearing out and sun was trying to break through. So I ventured further away to where I wanted to start and set up. And right on queue we got rained on and blasted by the wind. That was the last one, right? Nope!!
Went a little further west and got setup again. The stormy clouds had finally past and I was feeling pretty good about the day, we just needed the wind to stop. As we sat there waiting to see a tarpon I checked one of the weather sites. The forecast for the rest of the day was like 10 mph winds and partly cloudy, great. Only thing was it was cloudy and the wind was ripping over 20 mph and didn’t stop. After a while of sitting there staring at the water and only seeing whitecaps roll off the flat we called it a day. Thankfully I was with one of my regular clients and we had a few more days to fish.
On the positive side, I had a couple of trips that literally made my entire year. One was with a couple of guys that started fishing with me three years ago. The one guy was just snake bit, something always seemed to go wrong whenever he finally hooked a tarpon. It was super frustrating and I really wanted him to get off the schneid. It finally happened for him on the last day and he landed his first tarpon. And as it usually works when you finally break through, it comes easy after that and he ended up landing another and jumping a couple more. These same two guys that very same day ended up with a flats grand slam. We got the permit on a spinning rod when a school of little ones swam by us while the other guy on the bow was casting to a school of tarpon. Thankfully it doesn’t matter how it happens, it all counts!!
The other big highlight for me last year was one of my long time anglers finally, after many years of trying and dealing with February and March weather, got his permit on fly! He wasn’t able to make his normal trip early in the year and came down in June instead to fish a few days. I was super excited to finally fish with him in the summer. And on day three everything came together just so and he got that permit on fly that had eluded him for years.
Speaking of permit, I encountered more permit last year than I have in probably the prior three or four years combined. I’m hopeful for a comeback and I think 2026 is going to be another good year for permit.
Looking ahead, I think if we can continue with this more normal weather pattern like we had all last year, it’s going to be a great year. Bonefishing has been unbelievably good and they are getting bigger down here. I rarely catch dinks anymore, they are all growed up. Really no reason for that change. The big barracudas will be all over the flats as usual throughout the winter months. Tarpon and permit should go through their normal cycle, showing up when we have periods of very warm and sunny conditions. The resident tarpon will give us some fun over the next couple months, a prelude to the spring migration.
I really believe this going to be the year we see a lot of permit like we used to. I could be wrong of course, I don’t have a crystal ball, but if the trend continues I am very hopeful.
Capt. Mike Bartlett
