Had Rich and Luke Cromwell, regular customers of my brother and myself, today in the backcountry and gulf of islamorada fishing january. We started out near the cape and hit a spot on the way out to the gulf looking for some snooks. The action wasn’t hot and heavy and after no bites at the first spot, moved a little further in a creek and ended up pulling a couple snook out, one medium size and one little guy. Luke caught his first snook and was happy on this islamorada snook fishing charter. We then decided to move out into the gulf as the wind was dying out and tide was about to start falling in a bit, a great time to be out there for cobia fishing florida keys. We stopped on a bit of structure on the way out looking for some cobia or big redfish. Casted a couple of pinfish out and let them sit, but nothing happened. We pulled anchor and continued our trek west. As we drove we scoured the crab buoys in search of tripletail. We ended up finding plenty and catching 6 in total including 3 keepers – great for dinner! Triple tail fishing islamorada is great when it is calm. Luke was happy with his first triple tail and did all the work, casting shrimp on a small hook with a bobber up current of the buoys and letting them drift back to the fish – WHAM! He is on! Had a nice permit surprise us and swim under the boat while boating one fish, however we weren’t ready in time and he swam off into the gulf. Never no what will happen on a january islamorada fishing report! We made our way to the wreck just as the tide changed. Put a few pinfish out and in no time had a big cobia on of 15+ lbs. Luke fought him for a while and he didn’t want to give up but we finally got him, lip gaffed for a picture, and released. Again Luke is happy with his first cobia – what a great day! We caught 3 more cobia, as well as plenty of jacks. Some cobia we sight casted too which was fun. Had one goliath bite on a live bait on the bottom but unfortunately missed him, and then a shark stole the bait. We then ran back to the islamorada everglades fishing in search of some trout. We ended the day in some runoffs and caught a handful of nice size trout, islamorada trout fishing is good in the channel run offs in the winter time. Great end to a spectacular day, Luke and Rich cannot wait to come back to the florida keys fishing!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
305-747-6903
rick@fishingislamorada.com