Seasons on the Flat

The Keys' flat angler is blessed with twelve months and all four seasons to pursue the bonefish, permit, tarpon and other flats' denizens in a vibrant environment. In this fascinating book Bill Horn recalls an angler's year in the Keys. There is a great misconception about the Florida Keys in that there's no change of seasons - a humid still dawn broken by the slash of glittering bonefish tails is a definite change from, two seasons later, leaning into a biting north wind on the same white capped flat. In fact, seasons in the Keys are marked by migrations of great fish, the rise and fall of tides, the coming of hurricanes and tropical storms, and flowering of tropical flowers and trees like flaming orange Poincianas and fragrant frangipanis. Each of the four distinctseasons offers its own charms and challenges and a year invested in becoming part of nature's cycle is a rare gift in an ever urbanizing world. Northern species like bluefish arrive in winter pushed south by the cold fronts.There is excitement when the big silver tarpon appear each spring cruising in transparent waters; summer brings return of black tailed permit from their offshore spawning trek and the human madness (and epicurean delights)of spiny lobster season. Cooler fall weather puts big bonefish on the flats.