Florida Keys Flats Guide - Flats Fishing The Florida Keys, Florida Bay, and Everglades National Park

This region, which incorporates the southern tip of the Florida peninsula, has been
supporting human habitation since the arrival of the first Native Americans. This
was because the wealth of its marine resource, its fishery, provided a dependable
year-round food source. For centuries the ready availability of fish, shellfish,
alligators and turtles supported the indigenous cultures of South Florida.

Then came the Europeans. In the early 1800's Fort Jefferson was built on the Dry
Tortugas and the city of Key West was founded. It was at this time that European
settlers began emigrating from the Bahamas to the Keys. These people were to
become known as "conchs" (pronounced 'konks'), this name later being applied to
anyone born in the Keys. In the late 1800's Flamingo, located on Florida's south
coast in what is now the Everglades National Park, emerged as a settlement
founded on fishing and farming. In the early 1900's Henry Flagler built his famous
"Overseas Railroad" which provided rail service from Miami to Key West. The
consequence of all this development on the marine resource was the establishment
of a commercial fishing industry that became an important facet of the local
economy. For that reason, the commercial harvest of the fishery was the
predominate form of fishing in the Keys and Florida Bay. Sport fishermen were few
and brave. The only fishing guides were moonlighting commercial fishermen. No
one fished on the flats.

It wasn't until the 1930's when a few Islamorada and Lower Keys fishing guides
began exploring a new idea, i.e., poling a skiff to stalk wary, spooky gamefish in
clear shallow water. Once they had mastered the intricacies of stalking fish in
shallow water these early guides then had to develop ways to increase the angler's
chances of catching the targeted fish. In those early days their biggest handicap
was their tackle. The need to make long, accurate casts pushed the design
limitations of the rods, reels, and lines. Prior to that, sport fishing was done by
trolling, drifting, or bottom fishing. The only people who sight-casted were anglers
fly-rodding for trout. So, it was this burning desire to catch these fish that
compelled anglers and guides to make the necessary modifications in their tackle
and technique in order to be able to accurately cast lures or bait to unsuspecting
bonefish, tarpon, or permit. It was within this milieu that necessity fueled the idea
of introducing fly fishing into the saltwater scenario. What better way to make a
long, stealthy presentation than with a fly rod and weightless fly. Thus the art of
flats fishing began to evolve.

In evolutionary terms, flats fishing was in about the Late Cretaceous Period when I
entered the scene in the early seventies. At that time the boats were made of
wood, the rods were made of fiberglass, the reels are now museum pieces, the
monofilament we had was adequate, however the flylines were a different story.
Their properties were such that with one line an angler might have the feeling he
was casting over-cooked spaghetti, with another line, baling wire. By today's
standards our gear could easily have belonged to Fred Flintstone.

My first visit to the Keys was when I was age eighteen and in college. Prior to that
I had grown up in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay. We lived on the Severn River
where everyday of my childhood I watched the tide ebb and flood. I spent those
first eighteen years in boats fishing, crabbing, and exploring the Bay and its
tributaries. After graduating high school I began spending the summers in Ocean
City working as a mate on charter boats fishing for white marlin and all the other
pelagics. It was with this background that I first walked down the dock at Bud 'N'
Mary's Marina in Islamorada and watched a young Jimmie Lopez step off one of
those wooden skiffs with a fistful of flyrods with shiny gold Seamaster Reels and all
rigged up with enormous flys tied with big fluffy feathers of every color in the
spectrum. It was May and the tarpon migration was in full swing. That was
probably the most singular moment in my life. That was the moment I realized my
destiny and that its course was as fixed as that of a raft in rapids. It was at that
defining moment when I realized all my life-force would be dedicated to learning
how to fish the flats of the Keys and Florida Bay.

And so I began the process. At the time my eighteen year old mind had no concept
of what it would take to develop even a peripheral understanding of how the Bay
worked. Up until then the Chesapeake was the only thing I knew, the only thing I
could use as a reference. Compared to the Chesapeake, not only was Florida Bay an
enigma; it was like the Chesapeake on steroids. The Chesapeake had striped bass
in murky water. Florida Bay had gin-clear water containing 100 pound-plus tarpon
that would gulp flies. And then there was all the rest of it - bonefish, permit,
redfish, snook, and on and on...

Well, by dint of bull-headed perseverance and an obsessive personality the pieces
of the puzzle started coming together. And now, over three decades later, I'm still
here after learning the most important lesson of all, which is that the lessons never
end. If we keep our minds open we will never stop learning, and that is what makes
it all worth doing.

My name is John Kipp and I am a Florida Keys fishing guide. This is my website. It
is meant to be a photographic essay of my thirty-plus years living and working
here in Islamorada, in the Florida Keys - The Home of Flats Fishing!