Mike Bartlett Blog Posts

Tarpon fishing has been incredibly good this past week.  It started last weekend with a couple of flat calm mornings and continued through this morning.  I've been getting my clients out early and they have been jumping tarpon within minute...

It's a cold and windy next few days in the Keys. Goodbye tarpon, it was fun while you were here. See you next week. Captain Mike BartlettKey West Flats & Backcountry...

Short video of the tarpon my wife caught a couple days ago.  Thing went crazy thrashing and jumping all around the boat.  Never went more than 50 feet from us.  Perfect fish to get a ton of photos.Captain Mike Bartletthttp://www.keywes...

This March has to be one the worst ever for weather.  The first couple weeks of this month was riddled with strong cold fronts, wind, cold air and water.  It really felt like a normal January, which this year was beautiful compared to March...

Capt. Mike Bartlett just sent me this photo of a huge tarpon that his wife landed today off Key West.  We'll be seeing these same fish in about a month here on Pine Island.  Can't come soon enough. ...

This is the first manatee I've seen this year at Garrison Bight Marina located in the middle of Key West. It was very interested in the props of my Lenco trim tab trolling motors and the back of the Yamaha. Maybe just looking for something to sc...

It's been a cold, windy, rainy and all around crappy week with three cold fronts in the last seven days.  The nights have been very chilly but somehow the water has been relatively warm.  After another chilly night last night and a high of...

Capt. Mike Bartlett is tearing it up in the Lower Keys like no one else I know.  He sent me this shot and a few others from the first charter on his new BT3 that I took down to him last weekend.  His anglers Mike and Tom from Michigan...

       I shot back down to Key West late last week to escape the cold, nasty weather heading towards Pine Island and drop off my buddy Capt. Mike Bartlett's new skiff.  Unfortunately, the weather followe...

Fished with Captain Rob Kramarz of Chaos Theory Charters and his buddy Landon of Coastal Angler Magazine for some permit fishing on the flats of Key West last Saturday on the new Beavertail Strike.  The weather for once changed for the better in...

Capt. Mike Bartlett shot me this photo yesterday of a very sunburned Capt. Rob Kramarz releasing a beautiful 20 pound permit off Key West from the new Beavertail Strike.  They've had this boat in the Lower Keys for the past week and have really...

My buddy Capt. Mike Bartlett down in Key West is selling his 2011 Beavertail BT3.  This boat is the first BT3 built by Aeon Marine and is rigged with a Yamaha F90 outboard with just over 800 hours.  The skiff has lots of addi...

It's been a good winter so far for fishing on the Key West flats and backcountry waters.  Most days the flats have been loaded with big barracudas and Crevalle jacks.  During the warm spells as we are in now permit fishing has been awesome...

My buddy Capt. Mike Bartlett down in Key West is selling his 2011 Beavertail BT3.  This boat is the first BT3 built and rigged with a Yamaha F90 outboard that has just over 800 hours on it.  It has lots of additional features that make it a...

My buddy Capt. Mike Bartlett down in Key West is selling his 2011 Beavertail BT3.  This boat is the first BT3 built by Aeon Marine and is rigged with a Yamaha F90 outboard with just over 800 hours.  The skiff has lots of addi...

My buddy Capt. Mike Bartlett down in Key West is selling his 2011 Beavertail BT3.  This boat is the first BT3 built by Aeon Marine and is rigged with a Yamaha F90 outboard with just over 800 hours.  The skiff has lots of addi...

Jacks and Barracudas all over the flats. A few permit as well.

Had a good day fishing for redfish with Andy and Charlie from Delaware. The guys caught four real nice redfish and we saw a couple of others. We had a few shots at barracudas and few follows while blind casting catching one small one. The barracuda f...

Captain Peter Heydon, Captain Rob Kramarz, Captain Tony Skinner and I spent a couple days offshore fishing out of Key West last week on the Aeon 23 DLX.  With a well full of pilchards we were armed and ready for some serious tuna fishing offshor...

Not sure what type of bird this is, but it really looks like a small penguin. He was swimming right up to the boats cast netting pilchards.  Pretty cool.Okay, I just read about this mystery bird on the MyFWC Facebook page after posting the photo...