June 2019
My latest mini-article for Florida Sportsman. Bahia Honda barely survives Hurricane Irma and is on the road to recovery! Now wondering if anyone will read it after they threw in that cheesecake photo!! 🙄😂
Bahia Honda State Park
2018 HooknFly Blog High-Water Marks: The Best, the Bummers, and the Blood-Curdling
December 30, 2018
Greetings and my best to all my friends and readers for a great 2019!! It’s been a very fulfilling and fun year writing my blog. As well as providing an admitted excuse to go fishing and explore remote places, my main goal is to help reinforce and build the constituency to preserve and protect these wild and wonderful places. Given the current state of politics in the country and multiple threats to our environment and natural resources, it’s more important than ever to take a stand and do whatever we can to protect Mother Nature.
An added and very satisfying benefit has been connecting with people and making new friends around the USA and the world—readers from over 60 countries. As of Dec. 31, the blog has had over 40,000 views and 16,000 visitors, a 50% increase over 2017.
Now it’s easy to figure out why most of my readers are from English-speaking countries, but who am I to ask why someone from the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Brazil, or Turkey would take a look.
As the year comes to a close, I found it enlightening and gratifying to look back on the best, the bummers, and the blood-curdling moments of 2018 from a piscatorial perspective. Here you go….
Bahia Honda Grab Bag: Kayak And Wade Fishing Around Bahia Honda State Park (Florida Keys)
Wishin’ I Was Knee Deep In The Water Somewhere
Got the Blue Sky, Breeze, And It Don’t Seem Fair
Only Worry In The World
Is The Tide Gonna Reach My Chair–Jimmy Buffet
May 2018
For an update on post-Irma conditions at Bahia Honda State Park see my Florida Sportsman article from June 2019. https://hooknfly.com/2019/06/08/bahia-honda-state-park-post-irma/amp/
For more of my kayak fishing trips in the Keys see: https://hooknfly.com/2019/01/20/the-fantastic-four-fishing-the-forgotten-state-parks-of-the-middle-keys/amp/
and https://hooknfly.com/2016/05/16/three-perfect-days-kayak-fishing-in-the-florida-keys/amp/
Bahia Honda State Park in the Lower Florida Keys is routinely on lists of the ten best beaches in the USA, and coupled with its well-appointed seaside campgrounds, crystal clear waters, and scenic historic railroad bridge, it’s not surprising it is one of the state’s most popular parks. But what about the fishing?? Can tarpon, snapper, permit, and barracuda find happiness among the sun worshippers who throng to the white sand beaches of Bahia Honda Key?? And what havoc did Hurricane Irma wreak on the island? I fished around Bahia Honda a couple of years ago and had shots at some nice permit and caught scads of voracious barracuda. I’m back on my annual May trip to the Keys and decide to spend a couple of days wade and kayak fishing here, circumnavigating Bahia Honda in my kayak as well as sampling the waters of nearby Spanish Harbor and Ohio Keys. What I discovered was both shocking and encouraging—Irma drastically reshaped the landscape and the fishing. The Good News: The fishing is as good as ever!