Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 383 is a how-to conversation with South Florida bridge fisherman Chris Pascual, who breaks down bridge fishing in the Florida Keys from the very beginning. He explains how to pick a bridge by current and structure, what tackle and bait to bring, why he packs eight to ten dozen live shrimp and a drop net for three-mile spans like Long Key, and the post-hurricane timing that has produced limits of giant mangrove snapper for him on Channel 2, Channel 5, and Long Key.
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Chris Pascual, known on Instagram as Pescador Cubano, is an experienced bridge fisherman from South Florida who specializes in fishing the Florida Keys bridges. He targets mutton snapper, mangrove snapper, cubera snapper, and grouper from iconic spans like Channel 2, Channel 5, and Long Key, and he is also experienced snook fishing the bridges around Stuart, Jupiter, and West Palm Beach.
Chris looks for two things first: good current flow and good bottom structure. Moving water carries the scent of bait and chum farther and pulls fish in, so he favors the bigger northern bridges around Channel 2, Channel 5, and Long Key that have reliable current. He also scans for coral heads and seagrass, where shrimp and baitfish hide and bigger predators come to feed, often walking the bridge at low tide to spot structure he could not see on a high tide.
Chris brings four or five conventional reels on eight-to-nine-foot bottom rods with enough backbone to winch a grouper away from the pilings, because bridge fishing is not finesse fishing and you have to win the battle every time. He adds a lighter spinning rod with 30-pound braid for mangroves on a live shrimp and jig head, plus a heavier spinning rod in case a tarpon, permit, or cobia cruises the channel.
A drop net is essential on spans like Channel 2 or Long Key where you cannot walk a fish to shore. Chris uses a standard drop net from a local tackle shop, usually around thirty dollars, and it has saved countless big muttons, permit, and groupers. He also doubles it as a makeshift crab trap, stuffing it with bait and soaking it in the current, which has produced lobsters and stone crabs during slow stretches.
Chris likes big baits for big fish: chunks of mullet, goggle-eye plugs, mullet strips, and whole threadfin herring soaked on the bottom, especially in the overnight and early-morning darkness when the biggest muttons cruise through. Big baits draw fewer bites but weed out small fish. Alongside them he keeps multiple live shrimp working different pilings for mangroves and muttons.
Chris waits about a day for the water to settle. After Hurricane Michael skirted the Keys on its way to the Panhandle, he fished two days later and limited out on mangroves with every fish just shy of 25 inches, then limited out again the following weekend and added a 25-inch black grouper. The barometric pressure change and stirred-up water create an exceptional feeding window.
I have driven across the Keys bridges a thousand times and watched anglers set up in every configuration you can imagine. Some clearly have it dialed, and plenty are just hoping for the best with dried-up bait. After people kept asking me to do a bridge fishing how-to, Chris was the first person I thought of. I met him at Lunker Con, I have followed his catches since, and the man flat out produces. I wanted him to walk a first-timer through the whole system in his own words. Press play in the YouTube player above to hear it.
The first thing Chris does when he walks out on a new bridge is scout it. He checks which way the tide is running, looks for the coral heads and seagrass that hold bait, and watches for crevices and cracks at low tide that might hide a grouper or a mutton. He is choosing his spot off current and structure before he ever sets a rod down. It is the step most people skip, and it is the one he says separates consistent producers from guessers. Listen to how he reads a bridge in the episode.
Most anglers show up with a dozen or two. Chris brings eight to ten dozen, because he is not fishing one rod at one piling. He runs multiple baits across different pilings, soaking big cut baits on the bottom for grouper and cubera while live shrimp work the mangroves and muttons, and during overnight sessions those shrimp keep producing into the early-morning hours. He explains how he manages that much bait and why it covers water that other anglers leave dead. Hear the full breakdown in the player above.
On a three-mile bridge there is no walking a fish down to land it, so the drop net stops being optional. Chris walks through how he picks one and uses it, and then tells the story I keep thinking about: a roughly 12-pound mutton he hooked at sunrise that a shark cut down to a 16-inch head on the way up. He also shares the secondary use that has put lobsters and stone crabs in his cooler. Listen to the whole drop-net section in the episode.
Chris is one of the few anglers who treats a passing storm as an opportunity instead of a setback. He gives it about a day, lets the water settle, and goes. After Hurricane Michael skirted the Keys, he limited out on near-25-inch mangroves, released 17- and 18-inch fish because he was catching bigger, and backed it up the next weekend with another limit and a bonus black grouper. He explains the timing window and why barometric pressure changes the whole game. Press play to hear exactly when he goes.
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What I appreciate about this one is how specific Chris gets. He is not handing out generic bridge fishing advice. He tells you which bridges work and why, what to look for in the structure below before you set up, and exactly what gear it takes to turn a big cubera away from the pilings.
The post-storm window he describes is something most people miss entirely, but it is a real, repeatable pattern if you understand the timing. If you fish the Keys or you are planning a trip down, this conversation will save you time and put you on better fish. Listen to the whole thing.
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Chris Pascual is an experienced bridge fisherman from South Florida who specializes in the Florida Keys. Known on Instagram as Pescador Cubano, he targets mutton snapper, mangrove snapper, cubera snapper, and grouper from iconic Keys bridges like Channel 2, Channel 5, and Long Key, and he has developed detailed systems for tackle, bait management, drop nets, and the heavy-duty cart that makes three-mile bridge sessions possible. He also fishes the bridges around Stuart, Jupiter, and West Palm Beach for snook.
Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 383, Chris Pascual...
Tom Rowland: Chris, what's going on?
Chris Pascual: Oh, good, good, good. How are you, Tom?
Tom Rowland: I'm doing great. I'm doing great. I had so many people contact me and ask me to do a bridge fishing episode on How2Tuesday, so I thought you would be the perfect person to call. I've been following you since we met at Lunker Con, and you catch them, man. You're catching really good quality footage off the bridges.
Chris Pascual: Oh, yeah. That was a fun event. It was a pleasure meeting you there. And I always enjoy talking about the bridge fishing game down there. I've been doing it for a long, long time.
Tom Rowland: Well, let's talk about bridge fishing 101. I mean, I go running across the bridge, and you see all manner of anglers, from somebody that looks like they'd be lucky to catch anything with some dried-up bait that's been sitting in the sun for six hours, to some people that really look like they have it dialed in. So why don't you walk us through how someone going to the Keys would pick a bridge, and what that 101 looks like?
Chris Pascual: Basically, you want to pick a bridge that has some decent current flow. If there's good moving water, it's going to carry the scent of your bait or your chum further. Some of the bridges don't have nearly as much current flow, so you want something with a decent amount of moving water. You've got the bigger bridges up further north around Channel 2, Channel 5, and Long Key — those are excellent places to go, and there's always pretty reliable current flowing through there.
You also want to look for good structure — any kind of coral heads, or a lot of seagrass. That's also a good indication, because usually shrimp and baitfish will hide in the seagrass, and that in turn brings in bigger predators. Anytime I walk out on a bridge, I always scan the bottom. If it's low tide, I look around, see what kind of structure is around, and set up near there.
Tom Rowland: So is that what you'd suggest for somebody going down there for the first time — walk the bridges before you even start fishing, make sure you've got good current, make sure you've got some good seagrass? Would you walk it before you even got your stuff out of the car?
Chris Pascual: Yeah, I mean, you can bring your stuff out, but I kind of do that. I'll walk out and scout the bridge, get an idea of what's going on, see what the tide's doing — that's usually the first thing I do. I look to see which way the tide's going. You just want to look for any kind of bottom structure. Sometimes if I'm on a bridge at low tide, or getting to low tide, you can see a piece of structure you may not see during high tide. So you really want to look at the bottom and get an idea of what's going on, because if you see a little crevice or crack, there might be a grouper in there, or a nice mutton snapper. So you always want to look around and scout it out.
Tom Rowland: Okay, and so when you get set up, let's talk about bridge fishing tackle — what you generally take out there, or what you'd suggest people bring.
Chris Pascual: So basically, I bring a pretty good arsenal of bottom rods — all conventional reels on eight- to nine-foot bottom rods. Some of my stuff is custom, but you can pick up any off-the-shelf rod at a tackle shop. Something like an eight-foot Crowder will do pretty good — something with some backbone, because if you hook a big fish like a grouper, you've got to winch it away from the bridge pilings. That's key. You've got to have the right tackle. It's not really finesse fishing — you've got to win the battle a hundred percent of the time.
So basically I bring about four or five conventional reels on nice, stout bottom-fishing rods, and then I'll bring a lighter spinning rod with braid, usually 30-pound braid. That's what I'll mangrove fish with, with a live shrimp on a jig head. And then sometimes I'll bring a heavier spinning rod for targeting tarpon, or if you're lucky and there's a big permit or cobia cruising by in the channel, you can pitch a jig at it. You've just got to be ready for any situation.
Tom Rowland: Nice. Let's talk about bait and getting prepared — what you'd suggest for someone.
Chris Pascual: So me, I prefer fishing a big bait — a big chunk of mullet, a goggle-eye plug, a big mullet strip, a whole threadfin herring, something like that. I like targeting the big fish. I'm going to get fewer bites, but it's going to weed out some of the smaller fish. You're going to get some bigger snappers — mutton, mangrove — especially in the overnight hours, when I'm fishing big baits underneath the bridge in the early morning darkness. Those big baits can produce some pretty big snappers cruising through. You can get some groupers on them, too.
And then I'll always have a livewell full of live shrimp — anywhere from eight to ten dozen — and I'll fish those on each different piling, targeting mangrove snappers and muttons as well.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, and it sounds like some of those bridges are really big. You've already outlined a pretty good amount of tackle — eight to ten dozen live shrimp, four or five rods. How are you getting all this stuff out there?
Chris Pascual: So I've got one of those big aluminum bridge-fishing carts that I picked up at Bass Pro a couple years ago, with big heavy-duty rubber tires. It's got, I want to say, seven or eight rod holders welded onto it. So I put all my rods in there, my big cooler, my livewell, my chair, which is basically what I sleep on during the overnight hours when I'm out there camping out. I'll bring my drop net to bring up a big snapper, a tarpon, a cubera, or a grouper. I bring a lantern, I bring a chum bucket, I bring a cast net. I mean, I go all out. I bring a lot of equipment.
Tom Rowland: You've gotta have that, man.
Chris Pascual: Wet gear in case some squalls come through.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, oh yeah. I've seen some guys have a pretty slick rig with a bicycle pulling all their stuff out. That's pretty slick, because a lot of those bridges are really, really long, and you're going to get out there, but you've got to have some way of carrying all this stuff out with you. It seems like a cart — there are some pretty slick carts. Sounds like you've got yours rigged up just the way you want it. I've seen some other pretty slick ones as well.
Tom Rowland: Let's talk about the drop net a little bit, because I think a lot of people fishing bridges are used to bridges where they can be closer to the edge, or a long pier, and here you don't really have the option of walking the fish to shore. You're out in the middle of the bridge, so you need a drop net. Talk about how you pick one and how it's used.
Chris Pascual: Most tackle shops sell a standard drop net, which is pretty much what I did — I bought mine at a mom-and-pop store over here in Broward. But it's pretty much required. Especially if you're out in the middle of, say, Channel 2, or the middle of Long Key, which is basically like a three-mile-long bridge — when my buddy and I go out there, you're not going to walk a fish all the way down. If you get a big mutton, a permit, or something like that, you've got to have it. It's required, pretty much. It makes your life a lot easier.
Most tackle shops sell them for around $30 apiece — that's the general starting price. So it's just a good investment to have. And I actually sometimes double it as a crab trap. I'll stuff it with bait, let it sit in the current, and sometimes I get lobsters, sometimes I get stone crabs, just letting it soak for half an hour or forty-five minutes while nothing else is going on. So I do a lot of different things out there, but it's good to have one.
Tom Rowland: That's a good idea. That would be a nice bonus, to get a couple of lobsters in your drop net.
Tom Rowland: Alright, that's cool. As far as bridge fishing goes, especially for the Keys, are there online resources where people could get additional information, or share it with each other?
Chris Pascual: There are some forums on Florida Sportsman and Florida Sport Fishing that have different forums you can go on, ask your questions, get some answers. There's also a lot of Facebook pages dedicated to Florida Keys fishing — there's one called Florida Keys Fishing, and another called Florida Keys Bridge Fishing, which caters more to the land-based bridge fishermen. Social media is a big thing now, so a lot of people do that — they go on there and post their questions, pictures, reports. It's a pretty helpful tool, and there are actually a lot of folks on there willing to help you out. There are also some YouTubers who post videos of how they fish the bridges, and some of them are really good — a wealth of knowledge for sure.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, every little bit helps, especially when you're first getting started. And if you can ask those questions to somebody and find somebody willing to help you out, that'll go a long way, especially if you haven't fished down there that much. There are a ton of bridges — I think there are 42 bridges in the Florida Keys.
Chris Pascual: Yes.
Tom Rowland: So just like you said earlier, you have some that are three miles long, you have a Seven Mile Bridge — you can't fish all of that. Long Key Bridge, you can go all the way across it, it's three miles long. So this is the big leagues as far as bridge fishing goes, I'd imagine, and there are a lot of them to choose from. Some are really, really good, some are not so good, and some are really good secrets — you don't necessarily want anybody seeing you there.
Tom Rowland: What about some of the best fish you've caught off the bridge? I look at your Instagram — you go by Pescador Cubano, and it's a great Instagram page, people should check that out. You're catching a lot of mutton snappers, a lot of really good fish, cubera snappers. What's one of your favorite fish, or one of the most challenging fish, you've been able to catch from a bridge?
Chris Pascual: I've seen many different kinds, that either I've caught or seen other people catch, but it's hard to beat a big mutton coming up. Usually the ones I get are taking my bait sometime in the early morning hours, especially right at dawn. I always like to have a bunch of baits soaking on the bottom right as the sun's starting to creep up, because that's when some of my biggest muttons have taken the bait. Unfortunately, my biggest one, probably about a 12-pound mutton, which I hooked on one of my bridges right around sunrise, was taken by a shark as I was bringing it up. It was so heartbreaking. But he left me the head, and the head with a little bit of meat behind it was 16 inches long — it was like a dinosaur of a mutton.
Big cuberas, I've caught a few of them down there. Those things hit like a freight train, and you've got to lock that drag down and keep them away from the pilings at all costs — that's the only way you're going to win. I've caught some pushing 24, 25 inches. I've seen some pushing 30 inches. There are some big ones down there on those pilings, as long as you get good current flow. Some big mangroves too, especially right after storms — we just had a tropical storm blow through, so you bet I'm going to be heading down there in the next few days to fish them.
Tom Rowland: When you have a storm — a hurricane, tropical storm, some kind of significant weather event — how long of a delay? Do you like to go immediately after, or let the water start to clear? What's the sweet spot?
Chris Pascual: Usually I give it about a day, let the water and everything settle out. One prime example: a couple years ago, when Hurricane Michael skirted past the Keys on the way up to the Panhandle, I went down to the Keys about two days later, and it was just starting to settle out. I went to one of my go-to bridges and limited out on mangroves. Every single one of them was just a hair shy of 25 inches. The hurricane stirred up the bay a little bit — it came close enough to change the barometric pressure, but it wasn't too destructive of an event down there in the Keys, it was mostly a Panhandle affair. But it came close enough, changed the pressure, stirred everything up a little, and the mangroves were snapping. Honestly, I left them snapping — I'd already limited out, and they were still 20-plus inches. I was releasing 17-, 18-inch fish because I was catching them pushing 23, 24, 25 inches.
Tom Rowland: Nice, nice. And a lot of that's due to that rough weather — the barometric pressure change, pushing things around, it's just a big change, and that often offers a great opportunity for fishing. I always say hurricanes — people always ask, "You had that big hurricane, did it mess up the fishing?" And I'm like, no, it never messes up the fishing. It messes up the man-made stuff, but it always makes the fishing a little bit better, at least if you wait a couple of days.
Chris Pascual: Yeah, you wait a couple days, let the situation settle down. And for some reason, after that storm, my buddy and I went down the very next weekend and ended up limiting out on mangrove snappers Saturday and Sunday. They weren't quite as big as the weekend prior, when I was catching them up to 25 inches, but we were catching them between 17 and 20 inches, and then I got a bonus 25-inch black grouper right off the bridge itself. So I came home with 10 big mangroves and a 25-inch black grouper — a really, really good back-to-back weekend down there. It goes to show you, they'll kind of stick around for a while after the barometric pressure change.
Tom Rowland: Do you ever do much snook fishing around the bridges? I know that's a big thing too, a lot of people are really into that. What's your experience with the snook?
Chris Pascual: I've got to admit, I still have yet to figure it out down there. I've caught a couple of them, but I have a lot more experience snook fishing the bridges up in Stuart, Jupiter, and West Palm Beach — those places are loaded, and I throw Flair Hawk jigs, big swimbaits. As far as the Keys is concerned, it's usually a bycatch kind of thing for me — they'll come by and eat a big chunk bait on the bottom.
One of my best experiences snook fishing down there was around three in the morning, right on a tide change. There was a little bridge down in Sugarloaf Key, and I was the only one out there. The tide switched, and all of a sudden I heard tarpon popping baits on the surface. So I managed to get a pilchard, free-lined it, sent it down, and not even ten seconds later it got thumped — it was a pretty good snook. So they're definitely there. You just have to have some good current and fish it like any other bridge or inlet, like you'd fish up around the Tri-County area. Hopefully it's a game I can improve on here in the next bit.
Tom Rowland: Well, you seem to be doing really well. That's Pescador Cubano — if you want to check out his Instagram page, that's a good one, you can see a lot of the fish he's catching. If somebody wanted to reach out, say hi, or ask a question, how would they do that?
Chris Pascual: They can hit me up on Instagram, that's a good way to do it. Also, if I'm out there on a bridge and you see me in person, give me a holler. I'm not afraid to answer any questions.
Tom Rowland: Right on, man. Well, that's awesome, and I really appreciate all the information on this one. Get out there after this storm, and I'll be watching your page to see what you catch.
Chris Pascual: Yeah, hopefully it's good. I'm looking forward to getting back down there.
Tom Rowland: Right on. Alright, that's it for How2Tuesday, that's Bridge Fishing 101. We'll see you next week with another awesome guest and some good take-home information. Alright, thanks, Chris. See you.
Chris Pascual: You got it. Thanks. Thank you, Tom.
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