Quick Fishing Trip to Channel 2 Bridge in Islamorada
Eugene L. 02.29.24
I had my first trip down to the Florida Keys back in November where we explored the lengths of the keys from Key Largo all the way down to Key West. While we were pretty busy this trip and the weather shifted not even halfway through the trip, I did manage to get some fishing time in. After reading and seeing so much online about the fishing on the many bridges in the Keys I had to try it at least for a little bit this trip. So on our second day in the Keys, I got to fish the Channel 2 Bridge in Islamorada for a couple of hours trying to catch whatever tropical species I could get down here. So that morning on the way to the bridge we made a stop at IslaMarina to grab a couple of things we would need for fishing the bridge. Some live shrimp and a block of chum, both of these are key for bridge fishing.
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The Channel 2 bridge is the first bridge you’ll run into as you make your way south from Lower Matecumbe Key towards Long Key. The bridge has a pedestrian and fishing bridge adjacent to the highway bridge on the north gulf side. There is parking on both sides of the bridge but the northern side on Lower Matecumbe Key is a larger paved parking lot while, the southern side parking lot is a handful of spots on some gravel.
We parked in the north side parking lot and I got to loading up my pier cart with my gear. I recommend taking some sort of cart to lug your gear around, it would have been a really long walk out there if I had to carry out everything by hand. Other things I recommend to pack with you is some sort of sunshade and a folding chair if you have the space. There is no shade or seats out there on the Channel 2 bridge and while the weather wasn’t too hot in November I could imagine it being miserable out here in the hotter months.
We walked out about halfway across the bridge setting up on one of the fishing platforms. I tried to pick a spot that looked to be a bit deeper than the rest, but honestly, most of it looked pretty similar depth-wise. Another noticeable thing was the current was ripping through the bridge, this would prove to be a bit of a problem for me. There I got to unloading my gear and rigging up my fishing rods. I brought out 4 rods with me, a couple of heavier set rods, and a couple of lighter inshore rods. A Yeti GoBox 15 works pretty well as a tacklebox, even after 800 miles of driving half of it through storms it stayed dry inside. The plan was to set out the big rods with a big shrimp or a piece of cut bait, and on the inshore rods, I was going to throw a lighter Carolina rig with a live shrimp or a sabiki to try and make some bait.
Once I got the rods rigged up I left them in the pier cart as I got my block of chum ready. I put it into a mesh chum bag and dropped it down into the current on some paracord. This is key for fishing the bridges in the Florida Keys, this draws in life from all around as the chum slick flows. This quickly brought in a school of leatherjacket, also known as crazyfish. These are a slim silvery fish, with venomous spines in the dorsal and anal fins. With the chum going I started off with trying to catch some bait on the sabiki.
I tried casting a bit away from the bridge first to try and see if I could find some pilchards or some other baitfish but just kept hooking up on crazyfish. So with the sabiki not working away from the bridge, I tipped the sabiki rig with some tiny pieces of shrimp hoping for some pinfish or maybe even little grunts near the bridge pilings. Instead of bait, all I caught was an assortment of aquarium fish. I got a sergeant major, a porkfish, a baby yellowtail snapper, and a slippery dick wrasse. While these little guys were all the perfect size for bait, all of them had to be thrown back. All of them except for the yellowtail snapper are considered ornamental fish and can’t be killed. With the proper license, you could keep them for an aquarium but I had no such thing. The yellowtail snapper was just too small and way undersized. So while I was stoked to be catching new tropical species this did make a problem for my plan of getting cutbait. So I ended up getting another crazyfish and cutting it up into a few chunks for the big rods.
With the big rods now set out I switched over to my other inshore rod and tried fishing the Carolina rig with live shrimp. This didn’t work out so well, the current was just to strong for me to reach bottom. But when I switched to a heavier egg sinker I could not feel the bite and just had shrimp after shrimp stolen off the hook. I did eventually catch another yellowtail snapper though but it was again too small. I was honestly surprised it managed to get that circle hook in its mouth. But again at least it was a cool fish I usually don’t see in the northern gulf.
After not having any success trying to fish the Carolina rig I tried to just freeline a shrimp right behind the chum bag to all the hungry chubs that were pecking at the bits of fish coming from the bag, but they were surprisingly skittish. They would bolt at the sight of the shrimp even with it being weightless and on a 10lb fluorocarbon leader. After trying all that for a couple hours I had just a handful of small fish to show for it, while the water was incredibly full of life. My inexperience with the area and short fishing window made for a tough couple of hours on the water. I will definitely try again someday soon, hopefully when the weather and tides are more favorable. As a consolation though that night at Mallory Square in Key West, after a nice dinner with my wife. I did manage to get a mangrove snapper from the seawall and broke off on a small tarpon, both on the leftover live shrimp in my livewell.
