Hi Everyone. I thought you might be interested in seeing some pics from our recent trip to Florida. We pulled the RV down and spent 14 days. The good stuff aka fishing pics are below.
First, we spent 3 days in Orlando doing the Disney thing. My son was only 6 months old when we went the first time and now that he is older my daughter has had him talking about it for a year now. It was a good time but we only went to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. Wanted to get back on the road and to the beach.



We then headed down to the Keys and spent a week at a pretty sweet place right on the water at mile marker 14 (14 miles from Key West). The Keys are really something else and not what I was expecting at all. To be honest it is much more of a craphole than we were ready for, lol. I don�t have a problem with that, just not what we are used to when going to Florida (we go to Panama City Beach every summer). You have to drive way to much to get anywhere, there�s not really a beach, and not much to go do with the kids after we are done swimming. We had to drive 35 miles to get to the Bahia Honda State Park every day because it was the best place we found for the kids to swim and have somewhat of a beach. Oh and no real shelling to speak of which is all my kids talked about besides Disney.
With all that said, the water is beautiful and the fishing is amazing. My wife and I would definitely go back without the kids just to fish and relax which is what the Keys are really good for I think. Would love to do a guy trip and go offshore everyday. The snorkeling is also awesome and my kids loved doing that in the shallow water. Found a lot of Queen Conch (they were all alive and we didn�t take any), bahama red starfish (just looked at these too), tons of tropical fish, urchins, anemone, crabs, etc. all in about 18inches of water. Oh and a lot of lobster which I thought was the coolest. Oh we thought it was amazing that there were iguanas literally everywhere.

Feeding the Tarpon at Robbies on the way down.





Our place near Key West with its own tiki hut and deck/dock on the canal.







Bahia Honda State Park







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The first night at the RV park we were messing around checking out the dock and underwater lights and I caught this horseshoe crab and this stingray made an appearance (we�re used to seeing them as they are everywhere, day or night). Barracuda liked to hang out too and would eat any bait chunks we threw to him but I swear if we put a hook in it he would swim over, look at it, and swim off. I was using 20lb fluoro line with no weight and a small circle hook. He was smart.





Helped the kids fish off the dock in the mornings. Caught a lot of little stuff on cut ballyhoo. My daughter managed two keeper mangrove snappers (not pictured) that we cut up and blackened for lunch within an hour of catching. She thought that was the coolest thing. Those mangroves are freaking smart and hard to catch. Other fish they caught were pinfish, lane snapper, and the unidentifiable fish below.

Lane snapper I think. Released.



Pinfish



Unidentifiable



Now for the real good stuff. We went offshore on a guided fishing trip and it was a blast. Highly recommend Captain Bill with Island Charters. He knows his stuff and is great with kids. He runs a no frills 21� Parker CC that is amazing. We caught a ton of fish. Ended up catching 2 big gag grouper, too many yellowtail snapper to count, something the captain called a slippery dickfish, mutton snapper, spade fish, mahi mahi, big shark (possibly a lemon), and amberjack.

Grouper on





Heather�s grouper



I said he was good with kids and he helped my daughter do everything on her own. And these were some good fighting fish.

Cadence�s mutton



Her yellowtail



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Small amberjack



Spade



Here is the shark I had on and fought for a good 20 minutes. He freaking spit the hook seconds after the pic was taken. It�s no big deal though, I was hoping for a huge 200lb grouper or something. That would have made me sick. This shark ate a live 20inch baitfish.



AND finally, the best fish IMO of the day. We were using very light yellowtail gear at the time, with 15lb line, and a small hook and small bait drifted back into our chumline. All of a sudden Heather yells excitedly �mine is jumping!� I turned around just in time to see she had hooked a mahi. Neither of us have caught one so it was a frenzy. Haha. It was peeling drag and the captain didn�t see it jump but figured it must be good by our reactions so he unhooked from the anchor real quick so we could chase her down. Gear held up and I brought it in with the gaff. It really was an awesome team effort. Not the biggest mahi but we were very proud of it.

Actually took these fillets to hogfish grill in Key West that night and had them cook it fried, grilled, and blackened. It was amazing.



What we kept



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After 7 days in the Keys, we had had our fill, so we decided to spend our last couple days in Panama City Beach since we had to drive near there on the way home anyway. Wanted the kids to have some real beach time.








Briefly fished in PCB but not too much. Caught skipjack, blue runners, Spanish mackerel, and hooked into a shark.

Spanish (aka shark bait)



Shark on. I have caught numerous sharks before at this exact spot. It doesn�t take long with skipjack or mackerel on. This one actually cut me off as I wasn�t serious this day and was too lazy to rig up with 125lb leader rather than 65. Might have made the difference. Oh well



Sadly, it came to an end and now we�re back to the grind.
Thanks for looking. Hope you enjoyed!

One more of the boy since he kind of looks like a goober squinting in the other pic

Looks like a really nice trip.
Congratulations. Y'all will be talking about that one forever.
Thanks for sharing.

Robbies is a must see in the keys. That bridge brings back a lot of memories. I spent many hours around that bridge catching lobster. I had a commercial
license to dive for lobster when I lived in Florida.

Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

That looked like a really fun trip.

Looks like a great time!

One of these days I'll make it to Florida. Thansk for sharing

cool! looks like fun!

Awesome pics.

Thanks for sharing.

Looks like a great vacation

Thanks for sharing your vacation, really enjoyed the pictures and Know the family enjoyed the fun things in Florida. Ferdi aka Fred