I owe you a story from earlier this month. The Miss Penny crew donated a full-day charter to the Best of the Upper Keys 2025 silent auction, with every dollar going to the Florida Keys Children’s Shelter — the folks who keep a roof over kids and families in tough spots, all up and down the Keys.
Auction winner Richard Weinstein rolled up to the dock with Anton, Seth and Barry ready to fish. Chad ran the boat, I ran the pit and the ocean cooperated. We went two-for-two on sailfish, two bites, two hookups and two clean releases — no long soaks, no “he ate and let go” heartbreak.
Both fish ate right, jumped hard, came boatside and swam off strong. In between we kept rods bent on cero mackerel and mutton snapper, and one fat cero made the trip a Keys-only kind of memorable: the crew ran it straight to Chef Eric Andreu at the Islander at Ocean Reef Club, who broke it down into a full nigiri platter that night. From the cooler to the sushi bar in a single day. You can’t buy that. You catch it.
A big thanks goes out to everyone who put the auction together, to Weinstein and his crew for bidding generously and fishing hard, to Chad for running a clean program and to the shelter team for the work they do year-round.
Now — on to May 1. Pencil it in. That’s the day the Atlantic grouper closure lifts and we can finally start putting black, gag, red, scamp and the rest of the gang back in the box. It’s also the day blueline tilefish and snowy grouper re-open in South Atlantic federal waters. Five months of staring at structure and not being able to bring one home is a long winter, and I’m not the only captain on this island chain who’s been counting down. Here’s how I’d plan an opening-week trip — reef to deep.
Live bait first, every time
Spend the first 45 minutes filling the well, with pinfish off the patches, grunts and pilchards on the sabiki, a specialized Japanese fishing rig used to catch baitfish like mackerel, around the channel markers, and if you can get out to the bait pods, blue runners are gold. A frisky runner pinned through the nose on a 7/0 circle hook, dropped on structure in 80 to 120 feet, is as close to a guaranteed bite as anything in the Keys. Bonus: mutton snapper eat the same rig, so it’s a two-for-one bottom program.
Heavy enough to win the fight in the first five seconds
Grouper don’t fight long — they fight short, hard and back toward the rocks. Give them three feet of line and you’re tying on a new rig. I run 80-pound mono leaders, 6 to 12 ounces of egg sinker depending on current, and minimum 65-pound braid on the reel. Lock the drag, lift and pull them up off the bottom. If the rod goes slack you’ve already lost.
Trolling deep divers covers ground
When the bottom bite is slow or you’re prospecting new humps, drag a Mann’s Stretch 25+ or 30+, or a Rapala X-Rap Magnum, at 5 to 6 knots over 60 to 90 feet of structure. Bump the lure off the bottom occasionally — that’s the trigger. Some of my best blacks have come on the troll, including a couple that ate within sight of the rod tip. Loud purple/black or chartreuse have been my go-to colors.
Don’t sleep on jigging
Slow-pitch jigs in the 200- to 300-gram range, fished on the up-current side of a wreck or ledge, will out-fish bait on certain days. The Pacific guys figured this out a decade ago and the Keys grouper crowd is finally catching on. If the bottom rod’s quiet, pick up the jig stick.
Save a drop for the deep water
This is where May 1 gets really fun for the deep-drop crowd. Blueline tilefish open back up after their spring closure, snowy grouper kick off their short federal season, and yellowedge, misty grouper and golden tilefish are all in play within their aggregate limits. If you’ve already got the LPs and electric reels rigged for swords, you have everything you need. Run out to 400 to 700 feet for bluelines along the hard-bottom edges, push to 600 to 1,000-plus for snowys and yellowedges, and go deeper still — past 800 feet, sometimes well past — for goldens on the soft mud bottom they prefer. A two- or three-hook chicken rig with chemically-sharpened circle hooks, fresh squid or bonita strips, and 3 to 5 pounds of lead is the standard play. Drop, hit bottom, crank up two turns and watch the tip. The bites are subtle compared to a sword — you’re not looking for a slam, you’re looking for the rod to lean over and stay leaned. Set the hook by leaning into it, then let the LP do the work.
Heads up to my fellow for-hire captains: the federal snapper-grouper permit comes with a zero retention on blueline tilefish for captain and crew. Make sure your customers know going in — that fish goes home with them, not us.
Before you leave the dock — the boring but important part: circle hooks and a dehooking tool are required for reef fish in federal waters. Atlantic shallow-water grouper aggregate is three per angler per day, only one of which can be a gag or a black. Gag and black both need to measure 24 inches total length; red needs 20. Snowy, yellowedge, blueline tile, and the rest each have their own size and bag limits — pull up the FWC and NOAA bulletins before you run, because the deep-water rules are species-specific and the season lengths are getting shorter every year. Bring a ruler that can’t lie to you.
Boats are filling up fast for opening week — reef trips, deep-drop trips, mixed-bag days. If you’re planning to get out, get on a captain’s calendar today.
Tight lines.
