Destination: Florida : Lower Keys’ shallow reef waters reel in bonefish and those angling to catch them

Capt. Jim Perry churned through 10 inches of water at 40 m.p.h., threading his 17-foot skiff between clumps of coral and rock. I gripped the gunwale. Perry’s sunburned face creased mischievously.

“Don’t worry,” he deadpanned. “I haven’t hit a rock yet this week.”

“But it’s only Monday,” I muttered.

Perry grinned and crossed his fingers. In the distance shimmered the white line of U.S. 1--known in these parts as the Overseas Highway--that connects the Florida Keys to the mainland. We were racing across the flats, shallow reef waters that make the Keys a fishing paradise. The outer Atlantic waters of the Keys are bordered to the east by the Gulf Stream, a band of warm water teeming with fish. We were on the Gulf of Mexico side, known locally as the back country, which boasts the third-largest living coral reef in the world and was recently proclaimed a National Marine Sanctuary, a federally protected refuge for Key deer and Great White herons, among other species.

I came here not to sightsee, beachcomb or snorkel, but to catch fish--bonefish in particular. By the time I left the Keys, however, I had become smitten by spectacular scenery, the sunsets and the distinct personality of each of these reef islands covered with pine and mangrove trees and steeped in a history of pirates and sunken Spanish galleons. My one regret was not discovering the Keys sooner.

Southern Californians do not visit the Keys in great numbers; our traditional preference for beach and fishing vacations has been in Hawaii, Mexico or our own back yard. I have fished them all, but Florida Keys fishing is distinctly different. Off California, for example, fishing often means rubbing shoulders with hordes of anglers in large so-called “cattle boats” over deep seas. In the Florida Keys, one or two anglers often fish for exotic Caribbean species over reefs.

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My wife, Meredith, and I decided to sample Keys fishing last November. I began planning with a call to the Florida Fish and Game office, and someone on the phone recommended a guide named Jim Perry. I called Perry, who sounded laid-back, professional and had a sense of humor, and booked his boat.

We began the trip after landing in Miami and renting a car. It was a 35-mile drive from the airport to the bridge connecting the mainland to Key Largo, gateway to the Keys and to another world.

Gone were the concrete and clamor of metropolitan Miami. The eight-lane turnpike became two lanes. The traffic and pace slowed. Shopping malls were replaced by roadside stands selling T-shirts, seashells, snacks, bait, sunset cruises and tickets for floating casinos. Sprinkled among the islands we noticed houses on stilts: The nautical term key, or cay, means reef or low island. Many of these are less than six feet above sea level, so they are vulnerable to flooding during hurricanes.

Before us was a drive I never wanted to end. Picture mile after mile of blue skies and sparkling clear water. Overhead wheeled pelicans, gulls and black frigate birds with up to seven-foot wingspans. Snowy egrets and herons with spindly legs picked their way through the shallows, hunting for food.

With every new leg of the drive, the flavor and ambience changed. The Overseas Highway begins at mile marker 126 and ends in Key West at mile marker 0. First, there is Key Largo, nearly 30 miles long, the largest island and the filming site of the Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall film of the same name. Red flags with diagonal white stripes bob offshore, marking divers below.

I was in too much of a hurry to stop at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, 78 square miles of protected living reef and a popular tourist stop. That decision was a mistake, Perry later told me; the glass-bottom boat tour alone was worth the pause. “Slow down. Relax. You’re in the Keys,” Perry admonished.

At mile marker 99, we got our first good look at “conchs,” the hardy dwellings of early settlers and Keys natives that are nicknamed after the large spiral seashell and the snaillike creature that lives inside, still a favorite food in this region. Conch houses were made from a local pine, knotty in appearance, many times harder than regular pine and now almost extinct. They are airy, shuttered and have endured years of pounding from storms.

At mile marker 92.5, we pulled over to visit the Shell Man, a family-run business that has been selling souvenirs from the sea for 21 years. We browsed among bins, boxes, shelves and display cases filled with coral and shells, but in the end I bought a stuffed alligator head (I know not why). It is now displayed in an upstairs closet.

Six miles later we entered Islamorada (“purple isle”), actually a clump of small keys that are famous for sportfishing and for the underwater wrecks of 21 Spanish galleons believed to have sunk in a 1733 hurricane. Divers still find coins and other artifacts uncovered by shifting sands on the ocean floor.

Like other keys, Islamorada had its own peculiar sights. There’s an abandoned limestone quarry popular with geology buffs, and a coral rock house, cistern and windmill built in 1919 (but accessible only on boat tours). On nearby Lignumvitae Key is a 280-acre botanical site. Farther south is the Indian Key State Historical Site, where in 1836 Seminoles burned a village that prospered by salvaging shipwrecks.

Ahead loomed Long Key Bridge, second longest in the keys at more than two miles. It links Islamorada with Conch Key, first of a stretch of islands called Marathon. These islands are known as the Middle Keys and have their own historical sites and parks. On Crawl Key, huge sea turtles once were kept in crude pens of rock or logs and then butchered for steaks and soup. Not anymore; they’re protected.

Many visitors to the Florida Keys drive straight to Key West (population 24,000), the largest, most famous city and the last stop before 90 miles of ocean to Cuba. It’s the southernmost city in the United States, and a haven for artists and writers.

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But our humble destination was a cluster of islands called the Lower Keys, located between mile markers 40 and 9, about a 30-minute drive east of Key West. Guidebooks claim they are the most unspoiled isles in the Keys.

They have colorful names--Sugarloaf, Ramrod, Summerland, Cudjoe, Big Torch and Little Torch, Big Pine and No Name--and were a welcome sight after driving over the Seven-Mile Bridge, supposedly the longest “segmental” bridge in the world.

We checked into Parmer’s Place, a grouping of comfortable waterfront motel rooms and bungalows on Little Torch Key. Parmer’s is worth seeing even if you don’t stay there. It sits on five landscaped acres that are a botanist’s dream, with more than 70 species of trees and plants, as well as aviaries filled with cockatiels, parrots and finches. Two full-canopied wetland forests also cross the property and are accessible by footbridges and paths.

Meredith and I had planned an early dinner, and then to bed. After fishing oceans and freshwater on four continents for 35 years, I knew the fishing boat captain would surely want to be on the water at sunrise, or earlier.

But Perry called to announce that he would pick us up on Parmer’s dock at noon.

“Noon?” I asked nervously, wondering why the late start. “I guess the fish down here have a late breakfast.”

Perry explained: “Down here on the flats, we don’t always fish sunrise and sunset. We fish the tides. When the tide comes in, so do the fish. That’s breakfast time.”

Perry suggested we have dinner at the No Name Pub on Big Pine Key, just before the bridge to No Name Key. “If you can find it,” he added, laughing.

No Name Pub is reached by driving through the 2,300-acre National Key Deer Refuge. Key deer are the size of a large dog and are protected throughout the Keys. I left for the pub at dusk, figuring the deer would come out to feed. They were indeed everywhere, foraging along the road, on front lawns and across the street from No Name Pub. When I remarked to the bartender that I’d never seen such small deer, he snapped that he considers them a nuisance, ruining lawns and eating everything in sight. It was a common gripe among locals, I soon learned.

The walls and ceiling of No Name Pub are covered with dollar bills signed by customers. A sign promised “Best Pizza in the Known Universe.” The bar was crowded with tourists and locals, and everyone seemed to be eating pizza. We got the hint, and weren’t disappointed.

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The next day, we were roaring along the flats when Perry suddenly killed the motor of his 135-horsepower Mercury. He snatched a 21-foot graphite push pole from the deck and scrambled onto a platform over the motor. He eased the skiff over the flats as stealthily as possible.

Perry has fished the flats for 19 years, mastering the art of guiding a boat over this sea of dark green turtle grass speckled with patches of white sand. “Turtle grass is a nursery for shrimp, small fish and crab,” he explained. “Big fish from the deep come here to dine because the incoming tide gives them room to maneuver.”

Perry scanned the water ahead from his perch. “Bonefish!” he hissed. “Twelve o’clock.”

Seven shadows glided across a sandy patch. “Lead the fish about 10 or 12 feet so your bait looks natural,” Perry whispered.

I sailed my bait--a wriggling shrimp--to the opposite end of the sandy patch. The bonefish cruised closer. In a blur, a shadow struck, then streaked across the flats, leaving a torpedo-like wake. Bonefish can reach speeds of 50 feet per second, Perry said. This fish “stripped” maybe 100 yards of line before slowing. I worked the fish to the boat. It took off again, but finally tired. Perry carefully removed the hook and released the fish, which disappeared unsteadily into the turtle grass.

The captain told us that bonefish meat is prized by Caribbean natives, “once you get past the bones.” But American sport fishermen usually practice catch-and-release. “I’ve never eaten one. Don’t plan to,” Perry said.

Perry guided the boat underneath an abandoned bridge section of the Overseas Railway, completed in 1912 and destroyed by the Great Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. Much of the old railroad system parallels the highway. Nearby, at mile marker 37, was Bahia Honda State Park, home of what is generally considered to be the most beautiful beach in the Keys.

It was late afternoon by the time we returned to the dock. There was still time to see the celebrated sunset at Mallory Square in Key West, but unfortunately every other tourist in the Keys apparently had the same idea.

I fled back to the Lower Keys and ate conch fritters and stone crab on paper plates at Monte’s Restaurant & Fish Market, at mile marker 25. The meat inside the huge, oversized claws of the stone crab (in season between Oct. 15 and May 15) is a Keys delicacy.

We wanted to see how stone crabs and lobsters are harvested, so Perry arranged a trip aboard a “crab pot” boat operated by Mike Lineberger, who runs a string of 1,000 wood traps. Each is baited with a strip of cowhide and attached to a buoy. We headed for his orange-and-black buoys leading to the old railroad bridge.

Dolphins played in the wake of the boat. An osprey circled (the bathtub-sized nests of these birds can be seen on power poles along Highway 1). Lineberger snagged the first buoy with a gaff, winched in the trap and blasted off the seaweed with a high-pressure hose.

“Every time I pop one of these open, I still get a kick about what I might see inside,” he said. Two stone crabs scuttled at the bottom. He snapped off the edible claws and tossed the crabs back (their claws often grow back within six months).

Methodically, with speedy precision, Lineberger hauled in trap after trap. He plucked out lobsters, spider crabs, reef fish, small octopuses and seashells with critters inside. He threw back everything but crab claws and legal-size lobsters. The sun was setting when we reached the railroad bridge and the last buoy. Lineberger slowed the engine and gazed at the sunset. “The day I don’t want to watch the sun going down is the day I leave the Keys,” he said, more to himself than to us.

We knew how he felt. We were leaving the next night, but not until after sunset.

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GUIDEBOOK

Keying Into the Keys

Getting there: American, United and Carnival offer nonstop flights from LAX to Miami (current lowest restricted fare is $318 round trip on American). Northwest offers direct flights, but flights on other airlines require a change of planes.

A car is essential to tour the Keys. All major agencies are represented at Miami International Airport; we used National, and paid $149 a week for a compact Chevrolet Cavalier with unlimited mileage.

Where to stay: (Note: Prices below are for summer and fall, generally late April to mid-December. Rates are generally somewhat higher in winter and spring.)

On Little Torch Key, Parmer’s Place (mile marker 28.5; telephone 305-872-2157), is a waterfront complex of cottages (about $120 a day for a two-bedroom) and bungalows (starting at $85) with kitchenettes, or motel rooms (starting at $55 per double). Maid service is extra ($10).

On Big Pine Key, Bahia Honda State Park, Big Pine Key (mile marker 37; tel. 305-872-2353) has campsites ($19-$23) and two-bedroom furnished waterfront cabins ($97). Deer Run Bed & Breakfast (mile marker 33; tel. 305-872-2015), occupies a traditional conch house with high ceilings and large windows; doubles $65-$95.

Where to eat: Monte’s Restaurant & Fish Market (mile marker 25; local tel. 745-3731) is a come-as-you-are place specializing in seafood. At $13, a stone crab dinner is the most expensive menu item. Mangrove Mama’s on Sugarloaf Key (mile marker 20; tel. 745-3030) features fresh fish (from $14) in old-time Keys atmosphere. No Name Pub (Big Pine Key; tel. 872-9115) is a local favorite known for its pizza ($4-$9).

Fishing: Charter boats abound throughout the Keys. One way to judge a charter service is to meet the boat at the dock when it returns. Survey the catch, the boat and talk to the fishermen. We chose Capt. Jim Perry (Route 4, Box 309K, Summerland Key, FL 33042; tel. 305-872-2323) who will take one or two anglers on his 17-foot boat for $225 per half day or $325 per full day (includes tackle and bait).

A sampling of others: Underseas Inc. (mile marker 30.5, Big Pine Key; tel. 800-446-5663 or 305-872-2700) offers daily scuba and snorkel trips to Looe Key Marine Sanctuary. Strike Zone Charters (mile marker 29.5, Big Pine Key; tel. 800-654-9560 or 305-872-9863) has glass-bottom, fishing/diving boats, islands excursions.

For more information: A list of additional accommodations, restaurants and attractions is available from the Lower Keys Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 430511, Big Pine Key, FL 33043-0511, tel. (305) 872-2411. Or contact the Florida Division of Tourism, 126 W. Van Buren St., Tallahassee, FL 32301; tel. (904) 487-1462.