How a village became a fishing capital
Islamorada, Village of Islands runs from about mile marker 90 down to mile marker 72, four islands strung along 18 miles of the Overseas Highway: Plantation Key, Windley Key, Upper Matecumbe and Lower Matecumbe. The village government describes the place in one line, as the Sport Fishing Capital of the World.
Before the anglers came the farmers. Settlers from the Bahamas arrived in the mid to late 1800s, and the Pinder family opened the area's first pineapple canning factory, while neighbors grew limes, melons and vegetables. Henry Flagler's railroad reached Key West in 1912 and brought fishing visitors with it, and the first road followed in 1928.
Charter fishing took hold in the late 1930s, when Captain Walter A. Starck and his son Buck began running anglers out of the property now tied to Whale Harbor. In the mid 1940s Bud and Mary Stapleton bought the land that became Bud N' Mary's Marina, and in 1950 local guides and captains founded the Islamorada Fishing Club.
The guides who worked these flats changed the sport. Captain Jimmie Albright is credited with the Albright knot and with guiding anglers to early fly caught bonefish and tarpon. Ted Williams spent years learning from them. Decades later Captain Richard Stanczyk and Vic Gaspeny worked out how to catch broadbill swordfish in daylight off Islamorada.
Sailfish in December, mahi in summer
The Islamorada Sailfish Tournament opens the Florida Keys Gold Cup series every December and is the main fundraiser for the Islamorada Charter Boat Association. Its organizers call it one of the oldest fishing tournaments in the United States. Sailfish are released, which is why the food story here is about everything else the boats bring back.
On a summer charter that usually means mahi, the offshore fish the tourism council's calendar puts at its peak from May through September, plus blackfin tuna and snapper off the reef. The tourism council also points out it is possible here to chase a sailfish offshore and then work the backcountry for bonefish, permit or redfish on the same day.
