Big Pine Key, Florida

Normally we'd fly fish every day, but this trip was different.   There were howling winds out of the northeast at 25 - 30 knots and frequent rainstorms night and day.   With the chance of lightning one doesn't want to be on the water anyway.  We did lots of cooking, went to Key West one day to the Apple store, saw a movie and ate Chinese.  Never once picked up a rod.  The water temperature was a chilly 69 degrees so no fish were hanging about on the flats.  They'd gone to warmer deeper water. 

 We did get one day of calm with intermittent tropical sunlight that turned the water a warm turquoise from time to time.  Amy's dad, Gordy, said let's go.  He took us to the "outback country" 6 or 7 miles into the Gulf of Mexico to a group of mangrove keys known as the East and West Content Keys, a great place to fish on white sand flats. The fish are very hard to see but on a sunny day one can see their shadows and figure where to cast.  It's also a great place to see wildlife.  We got few good photos due to the motion of the boat and the long zoom distances but we had a lot of fun trying.