Stuff I Like: Mitzi Skiffs

Mitzi Skiffs are a great little flats boat made in Jacksonville, Florida. I bought a used 16 footer a few days after we came back to the States for the summer and I’ve really enjoyed it. The one I’ve got is a 2003 hull rigged with a Mercury 40 HP 4-stroke outboard. I’m a dedicated Yamaha guide nowadays but this has been a fine motor and really sips gas. I can go fishing all afternoon and burn about two gallons of gas. At $3.75 a gallon, that’s really important.

This boat isn’t as sophisticated as my excellent Beavertail B-2 that I use for charters down on Vieques but that’s not what I was looking for. My budget allowed for a used boat and this fit the bill perfectly. The Mitzi is best for two anglers in smooth water. It’s a bit tippy so you have to move around the deck carefully, but it poles in less than six inches and is dead quiet in the water. I’ve caught some impressive fish off of it and didn’t have to spend five figures. Brand new this boat would have cost about $16,000.

That seems like a lot of money for a 16 foot boat but compare it to some of the competition. A new Maverick Mirage HPX will cost around $35,000. The Maverick is a more complete fishing machine which is why they’re so popular with guides and I still own a very old one. For a weekend angler they’re ridiculously overpriced. A Maverick will get you where you want to go a lot faster and look prettier once you’re there, but the little Mitzi will pole up to the same flat a little while later and fish right alongside any carbon fiber wonder machine.

But the real reason I wrote this short review is that my Mitzi is now for sale. I’ll be heading back to Vieques in two months and will be ordering a new Beavertail when I come back up to Pine Island next year. So if you’re looking for a fun and very economical little fly fishing boat in excellent condition, shoot me an e-mail. I’m asking $8500 and that’s as cheap as you’ll find one of these boats anywhere in Florida.

Flies for Vieques

The inshore waters of Vieques can be effectively fished with only a small handful of flies. Since the island doesn’t have a fly shop, you’ll need to bring your own bugs and this can be quite a pain considering the security situation with the airlines. The good news is that four different patterns will work for every species on the flats down here.

The first and most important fly is the Clouser Minnow. I’ve posted before that there are very few game fish that won’t eat a Clouser. You could come down here with a dozen of these and catch just about everything that swims near or off our shoreline. This pattern is exceptionally easy to tie in endless color combinations. They can also be purchased at any fly shop or online and rarely cost more than $3 a piece, depending on their size. My personal choice is white and green on a #2 hook. Tarpon, snook, jacks, and snapper eat these anytime of day.

Since Vieques is a prime bonefish destination, shrimp patterns are a must. The one pictured here is my own creation but it’s also a close variation of many commercial flies. Crosscut rabbit strips are my favorite material and give a terrific lifelike movement to any fly. The two best bonefish colors are tan or crawfish orange. The dumbbell eyes make it run point up so it won’t snag the coral. These are also easy to tie and I prefer a #4 hook. A similar commercial pattern to buy would be the Borski Fur Shrimp or Redbone Fluff. This is the best fly for our big tailing bonefish and I’ve had plenty of small tarpon and a few permit eat it, too.

Speaking of the ever elusive permit, we have them on Vieques but unlike Belize or the Lower Keys, you won’t get many shots. It’s important to make the ones you do get count so that means a crab fly. We go back to the basics here with the classic Merkin pattern. Del Brown’s hunk of rug yarn is still the best artificial to throw at this sometimes infuriating fish. A lot of guides, especially up in the Keys, now claim to have top-secret permit flies, and they’re landing some really impressive numbers these days. If you do get to peek into their highly classified boxes what you’ll see are turbocharged versions of the standard Merkin body. The one pictured here is my example. It features longer knotted legs and rabbit strips instead of hackles for claws. The store bought Merkins still work but are now considered old fashioned, the legs are generally too short. The Puglisi crabs are a good but pricey alternative. Buy or tie these on #2 or 1/0 hooks. Bonefish and almost everything else will eat them, too.

Lastly we have a dedicated tarpon fly. The three patterns already mentioned will catch the average twenty pound Vieques tarpon all day long, but every once in a while we get some real prize winners off the north shore, not to mention the potential world records that regularly cruise the waters of San Juan or Boquerón on the main island. For these triple-digit fish you’ll need one of the many dozens of patterns tied on tarpon size hooks. Most of them work the great if the presentation is right but again I go with rabbit fur for its underwater action and ease of tying. This is the red and black version of the Apte Too created by the legendary Stu Apte for Keys tarpon. It works everywhere. These are effortless to tie and available in multiple colors. I love the red and black because I can see it so well underwater and always know where it is in relation to the fish. I tie these on 1/0 or 2/0 Owner hooks which are the sharpest ones available.

So that covers it. Bring a box full of these patterns down and you’ve got the ammo for any shallow water fish that swims around Vieques or all of Puerto Rico, for that matter. Of course, if you hire a guide then tie on whatever they tell you at first, even if it‘s nothing mentioned here. We all have different opinions about what’s best and none of us are ever wrong.

Pine Island Jacks, Late September

Early fall is probably the most perfect time to be on the water in Southwest Florida. The constant wall of humidity has broken and the morning temperatures are so pleasant that you can't imagine not catching something great each day.

The real star of the show lately has been the big schools of jack crevalles that have been hanging near the shoreline of Matlacha Pass. Pound for pound, jacks are the strongest fish in the ocean. The one pictured here weighed only five pounds and took as many minutes to land on thirty pound line.

If these jacks got as big as tarpon, people would be afraid to go in the water around here, and actually they do get almost that big. Forty pound jack crevalles have been caught throughout Florida and the world record is currently fifty-seven pounds. That's a fish you could water ski behind and I can't imagine the fight.

I had an angler on Vieques earlier this year hook a ten pounder on fly and we fought it for half an hour. I even had to chase it with the motor running to stop it from spooling us twice. Jacks are ugly and taste like crap but I'd burn a tank full of gas to catch a good one. Fortunately, we can do that just outside our back door this time of year.

Some Vieques News

I've been on the phone with several folks on this island this week. It seems the latest Tropical Depression to form over Puerto Rico last weekend dumped and enormous amount of rain, causing a lot of flooding and landslides. As a result, the DSL service to a good part of Vieques has been out for several days. I also suspect that cell phone service for certain customers or on some parts of the island is down for now. This is the time of year that we start getting calls and e-mails from people booking for next season. It's a good idea to firm up your travel plans to Vieques right now, but don't be discouraged if the people down there are a little slow responding this week. I plan on heading back to the island in December but both Capt. J Fergeson and Franco Gonzalez are still running trips. If you're trying to book Capt. J or Franco and can't get through, feel free to call me at (787)435-4833 and I'll do my best to get in touch with them.

Mullet on the Fly

The flats around Pine Island are covered with huge schools of mullet. Everywhere you look, especially at low tide, you'll see them launching themselves out of the water like small tarpon. No one is exactly sure why they do this but it makes them an ulikely but inviting target for a fly rod. The only problem is that they're strict vegetarians.

The trick is to tie a fly that looks like a hunk of algae. This isn't very tough but it requires small hooks and a material called Krystal Dub. Wrapping a thumbnail sized piece around a dry fly hook will be convincing enough. The technique is to simply cast into a feeding school and wait for the fly to mistakenly get inhaled. Once hooked they put on a great fight, especially on a 6 weight or lighter rod.

Mullet are great to eat when smoked or fried. They were once commercially caught by the ton throughout Florida with huge gill nets. This practice was banned in 1995 and since then the mullet populations have exploded. You can't go anywere on the shallows of this coast without seeing them by the hundreds. Even better news is that all of the really prized fly rod targets, such as snook, trout, reds, and tarpon, feed heavily on mullet. By finding the prey, you'll usually find the predators. And if the predators can't be hooked, you can try fishing for the prey.

Fly Rod Slam

Today I landed my first Gulf Coast Slam caught entirely on flies. For those unfamiliar with the term, a Slam means catching a snook, sea trout, and redfish during the same trip. Landing all three with a fly rod is more difficult than using lures or live bait. Even though I did land this Slam with a fly, it was much harder than it should have been.

It started out as a quick boat ride to check out a low-tide flat just two miles south of our rental house here on Matlacha. When I throttled the skiff off plane the flat was teeming with mullet and tailing redfish. I dropped the anchor in less than a foot of water and walked about fifty feet from the boat, casting into the nearest boil that looked like feeding reds. My #4 shrimp pattern was instantly eaten and a five pound redfish was on the reel and pulling line into the backing. A legal size red and an 8 weight fly rod are made for each other. The fight was a beautiful thing to behold and when it was done I tossed this fish into the live well for dinner.

A few double hauls later and my fly line came tight on another fish, but this one jumped as soon as I set the hook. Fish #2 for the morning was a three pound snook, around seven inches less than legal but a blast to catch on the fly. After the photo I realized I had a problem. I'd caught two of the three Slam species on fly in less than a half hour. The only one I needed now was a sea trout, probably the easiest fish of all to find in Matlacha Pass. "No problem." I told my sunburning wife, "We'll get one right away at this next spot."

Three and a half hours of "Next Spots" later, I still didn't have my trout. And here's where things got really messed up with this Slam. Sea trout are the most common species around these waters right now. On a normal morning in late September I can catch dozens of them on almost any bait, especially the flies I was throwing. That wasn't happening today. I needed one lousy trout to complete my Slam and where the hell was he? I caught a redfish and snook in a half hour without trying and couldn't rent a sea trout anywhere in all of Florida. That made me very sad and angry at the same time.

The trout did finally show up just north of Matlacha, about four hours after we left our dock. Amanda caught one on a spinning rod to get us the Boat Slam, but it didn't quite count. We caught all three at that point but I needed one on a fly to make my personal effort official. Twenty minutes later I eventually got one close to the boat that threw the hook and sent my blood pressure into orbit. This was worse than catching nothing. Why the hell is a Slam so hard?

I kept tossing flies for another hour. My shoulder and neck were killing me by then from blind casting, but my line finally came tight on a big fish. It thrashed around at the surface and I knew I had my keeper trout. A minute later it was boatside and now I was beyond thrilled. This was a legal fish, just over twenty inches.

The usually easiest of the three to catch caused me the most trouble. It was a beautiful metallic colored trout, close to twenty-two inches long. A fish like that has "Fine Meal" written all over it, but I let it go. I wanted it to swim away as a reward despite all my trouble. He won't be so lucky the next time.

More Giant Black Drum

We finally landed one of these huge fish this morning. I posted a report and photos of the massive school of drum we found last week, but I never got one into the boat until today. I hooked it off the bottom while fishing with my dad near McCardle Island, just a few miles south of Matlacha.

This is an impressive looking catch in the photos but it didn't require any angling skill. Unlike their close cousin the redfish, black drum of this size fight like a bag of cement, and taste like one, too.

The most exciting part was seeing hundreds of his schoolmates tailing all around us on a two-foot deep oyster bar earlier that morning. The acre sized school was a ignoring everything we tossed their way and was totally indifferent to us driving all over them. They had no fear of my boat and if shanking a black drum with a bow and arrow was legal in Florida, then I could have fed our entire island for a week.

This particular thirty pounder finally sucked up the wrong bait. I caught it in ten feet of water while I was casting at some beautiful rolling tarpon. I had it to the boat in less than ten minutes and released him right after these photos. So after a week of trying, I finally got my picture taken with one of the ugliest fish that swims around Pine Island. Mission accomplished for now and I'll be back to the reds and snook for the rest of the year.

Hurricane Season

September is here and it’s obvious that we’re in for a very active Hurricane Season. So far up here in West Florida we’ve felt the effects of two storms, Fay and Gustav, and are currently keeping an eye on two more systems out in the Atlantic while waiting to see where Hurricane Ike will turn. After what was essentially a two year hiatus, the tropics are going to be much more temperamental this fall.

Compared to the States, Vieques has had it very easy for the past several years. Since I moved to the island back in 2005, we’ve never once had to secure our house for an oncoming storm. In fact, the last hurricane to seriously affect Puerto Rico was Georges back in 1998. This same storm would later bull’s-eye Key West while I was living there, smashing a boat I was building at the time and leaving me flat broke for months. After that, I never went to another hurricane party. There’s really nothing fun about these storms.

In the Keys we had an escape route with US-1, the famous Overseas Highway. It gets plenty of use during Hurricane Season as Monroe County evacuates at the drop of a hat. Most of the time these evacuations are controversial false alarms. I tended to stay put during the storms. I feared getting caught in a traffic jam on the Seven Mile Bridge when the winds hit more than anything that could happen by staying.

But Vieques doesn’t have the luxury of a bridge to anywhere. We have to depend on a sometimes reliable government run ferry to get us off the island, which is one of the reasons that we now move Stateside during the season. If I have to be caught in another tropical storm or hurricane, and I’ve been through several, I want it to happen up here.

Our physical safety isn’t what I worry about. Our house on Vieques, like almost everyone else’s, is solid block construction. It has a flat, poured cement roof and sits 90 feet above sea level. It’s not going anywhere no matter how strong the storm and my Jeep and flats boat fit inside the carport, well out of harm‘s way. What I do worry about is the aftermath.

When Hurricane Georges hit us in the Keys, I went without power for five days, which wasn‘t such a big deal. I had friends who didn’t have electricity for two weeks. When the power finally came back on there were mosquitoes hatching from my carpet and I was trading my beer to the National Guardsmen for the MREs they didn‘t want. I learned to love freeze-dried chicken loaf for a few days that month. October is no time to be without electricity in this climate. Things were much worse for the folks down on Vieques. Many went without power for over a month.

The electricity often comes back quickly in Florida and the Guard is on scene before the winds even hit. That probably won’t be the case for Vieques. When the Navy left back in 2003 a lot of post-storm infrastructure left with it. Getting aid to the island may be a little slower the next time but as part of a U.S. territory, Vieques will still fare much better than places like Cuba and Haiti. Fortunately, the island hasn’t been tested during its past half decade without the military and I hope it won’t be anytime soon.

With all of these considerations, a lot of people simply don’t travel to the Caribbean this time of year. September is officially the dead season on Vieques and a lot of tourist based businesses, including my own, close up shop until winter. The good news is that the bars and restaurants that do stay open are never crowded and many guesthouses lower their rates. For the few anglers that do visit, Captains Franco and J’s schedules are wide open and they’ll be eager to go fishing.

Perhaps the most ironic thing about Hurricane Season on Vieques is the weather, which is usually wonderful. The winds, which seem to constantly be howling when I’m down there guiding fly fishermen in the winter and spring, are often just a gentle breeze this time of year. The flats become glassy calm and you can spot huge schools bonefish tailing from a quarter mile away. It’s fly fishing at its best, but hardly anyone comes down to enjoy it. So now I leave the perfect flats of Vieques in the fall for South Florida, where I’m probably going to get hit by a hurricane. Go figure.

Giant Black Drum off Pine Island

These pictures aren't the best but they show one of three huge black drum we hooked yesterday. We were fishing an oyster bar south of Matlacha when I saw a wave of huge tails swimming our way. They were some of the biggest fish I'd ever seen around Pine Island. There were over a hundred fish in the school and none of them were under twenty pounds. Black drum are closely related to redfish but not as well known, probably because they're one of the ugliest fish on the flats, but they get huge. I hooked two of them on a shrimp fly and one with a Gulp. The one we actually landed easily weighed over forty pounds and I couldn't even lift it on the boat for a better photo. That's what I get for going out without a net or Boga Grip.

Pine Island Redfish

This fish was caught on an exceptionally calm morning a few miles south of Matlacha. He was part of a nice tailing school just under the mangroves in an area called the Mud Hole. I'm not sure why it's called that since the bottom is very hard and surrounded by oyster beds. It's a very easy spot to bust a prop on low tide, especially right now with our water stained so dark after all the rains. The redfishing has been great in between the storms but with Hurricane Ike coming that might change for a while. Reds are my favorite species to catch up here around Pine Island. They're great fighters that eat almost anything, and they taste fantastic. This one, a legal 22 inch fish, came home with us for lunch.