Sport fishing with Captain Kody Key of First Light Charters. Key West Florida.
- Tim
- May 1
- 5 min read
Key West, Florida, May 21, 2025. I wanted to do some fishing while visiting Key West. I did a lot of searching for guides on the Internet, YouTube, etc., and I came across Captain Kody of First Light Charters guide service. After watching many videos, searching Instagram, and looking at Google ratings, I decided to make the call and book the trip. Our original fishing date was Monday, May 19, but due to windy conditions the night before, Captain Kody, looking at the forecast, suggested we try for Wednesday. So Wednesday it was, and yes, he was correct about the conditions. The wind had cut by half, so the night before, the decision was made: we’re going on Wednesday. The decision was made to meet at the dock at 10 AM to let the winds lower a bit. After a restless night of excitement, waiting to go, I got up, got some food, and packed the drinks and snacks. I got an Uber from the south side of Key West up to Stock Island, about a 15-minute trip. The Uber arrived at our destination, and I met Captain Kody on the back dock.
It was no-nonsense, easy-peasy; we were going out to catch some fish with Kody. He said, "Welcome aboard." We jumped on the boat, and he showed us where to store our bags and put our drinks and food in two different coolers supplied by him with ice. All you need to do is bring your food and drinks. He has the ice and the coolers to keep everything cold. We boarded the boat, a 31-foot Yellowfin, fully rigged with state-of-the-art equipment powered by twin 300HP Suzukis.
He asked us a few simple questions to gauge our fishing knowledge and levels as he was setting up the gear and getting ready to go. After being on the boat for about 10 minutes or less, we untied, pushed off, and started working our way out of the channel into the Atlantic. Now it was time to go get bait, so we came all the way down around the southernmost point into the Gulf of America.
Chumming for baitfish
Then over to Sunset Pier area. If you’re familiar with Key West, it’s a very popular area to watch the sunset. Mallory Square area and along that area, we scanned for bait through the drift net. Half a dozen times, we loaded up the bait tanks, and then it was time to go fishing. We went out to Bluewater, basically due south of Key West, three shades of water. We got to where the water went from blue to dark blue, and immediately we started fishing. He started tossing bait fish off the boat (chumming), and we started out trying for swordfish. Worked on that for a bit, weren’t able to draw any up, so then we switched over to some bottom fishing. The bottom fishing did produce; we were able to pick up a couple of fish.
And we were very excited to do so. Captain Kody was not so excited. He’s like, "We can do much better than this." Over to chumming with bait fish once again, similar to the way we did for the swordfish, and after about 10 minutes of tossing bait fish out into the water, we got into a school of rainbow runners. Very fun to catch, very fast-moving fish. We had a few that came up with only half their body attached after the barracuda had attacked. Very exciting. This was all done while drifting in deep water, approximately 200 feet of water. Kody still was not satisfied. He’s like, "We can do much better than this." We moved around a little bit, looking at the fishfinder. We started chumming again, and we got into blackfin tuna.
Blackfin Tuna
Oh my goodness, the bite was off the hook. There were three of us fishing on the boat plus the captain. We had four rods going all the time. He was tossing out bait fish, and within 15 feet of the boat, the fish were boiling. Our bait fish would barely hit the water, and we were hooked into, not gigantic, but 20+ pound blackfin tuna that came up to the surface, took the bait, and then dove way, way down.
Blackfin Tuna
If you’ve ever hooked into a tuna, they're interesting. They dive, take off like crazy, and then once you start to turn the fish, they basically go sideways and swim around in circles. You slowly bring them up like a corkscrew. We had that going on like crazy. We also got into some mahi-mahi, and it was off the hook. Everybody had fish on, going over, under, behind the boat, up the boat, staying out of the motor. It was total mayhem. It was what I wanted. We all wanted fantastic action, crazy action. Once we got our limit of tuna, we were kind of tuckered out, and we were talking amongst ourselves, you know, "Hey, what do you think? Should we call it? Should we go back?" And all of a sudden, Kody, nonstop. This guy is a workhorse. He is gonna put you on fish, and he’s gonna make you keep fishing. All of a sudden, the big gear comes out. Now he sets up two bottom rigs, drops one down, tells us as soon as it starts going off, don’t pull it, leave it in the holder and just start cranking. So he gets one down and gets the other one just baited up and back into the water, and the first rod goes off immediately. Start cranking, cranking, cranking, cranking. About 10 to 15 minutes later, up to the...
Amberjack
Surface at an amberjack, probably 50-60 pounds. Excitement! What a fight, how rewarding. Then my rod goes off. I start cranking. Now we are not drifting anymore; we are on an anchor, and it seemed like we were drifting, and I had snagged the bottom. The line just kept peeling off, not real fast, but fast at moments, constantly going. I tried to crank, resetting the drag tighter and cranking, cranking and cranking, and most of the time the spool was going the opposite way. The drag was going out. Approximately 15 to 20 minutes later, it comes to the surface. I start seeing orange. I’m like, oh my God, what is this thing? It looks like a dinosaur, huge teeth sticking out, approximately 50 pounds, plus or minus.
Cubera Snapper
Huge CUBERA. OK, now we are all totally exhausted. The captain says if you guys are done, we can go in now, and that was our day. I have to say I have never been so successful with any guide and had a guide that was so intensely focused on making sure we got fish. We fished for a few minutes at a time; if something wasn’t working, while we were waiting, he was rigging up rods for different types of fishing and different kinds of situations nonstop. Captain Kody is your guy; I can’t recommend him enough. When we got back, Kody filleted all the fish for us, included in the trip.
Fillet station
Please see the link for Reel Guides' guide service down below, and I will include some pictures. Please book them if you're in Key West. He also does other trips out of Key West, so don’t hesitate to ask or inquire. I would get a recommendation from him as well; I can’t recommend him enough already. I'm planning my trip for next year.
Captain Kody's Youtube channel
First Light Charters guide service
Address: 5130 Overseas Hwy, Key West, FL 33040
Phone: (302) 430-4333
Open 24 hours
Fins Dive Shop, about 10 minutes away, will vacuum seal and freeze your fish for 48 hours and ship it home for you.
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