Enjoy Year-Round Back Country and Flats Fishing in the lower Florida Keys with Capt Billy.

It’s always a good time to fish the Florida Keys, and A1A Sportfishing offers many types of great guided fishing experiences. Flats fishing and back country fishing are two of them, done in roughly the same area, but they are two entirely different types of fishing.

Flats Fishing in extremely shallow waters is a form of sight fishing that is almost like hunting. It takes place up and down U.S. 1, the main highway of the Florida Keys, and all through the back country. I use an 18-foot custom built boat for the skinny water.
We’ll first see where the fish are, and then cast a fly, bait or plug right in front of the fish, using fly rods or light spinning tackle. Fall, early winter and spring are usually the best times to snare bonefish, permit and tarpon. Taking any of these fish on a fly is a real angling experience that will keep you coming back year after year.

Back Country fishing takes place in the same shallow waters, but along the edges of channels and grass banks using a somewhat larger boat holding up to four anglers. We call it back country because of the countless islands back there. We’ll anchor the boat, and use a slick of chum (finely-ground bait) in the water to bring fish up to the boat in casting range.

We’ll use light spinning tackle with 10-12 pound test lines, tipped with shrimp or surface plugs, to go after cobia, grouper, pompano, bluefish, trout, mackerel, jack, ladyfish and countless other in-shore game fish. We can also take in sharks ranging from 50 to 300 pounds.