We are near the end of October and things are really starting to feel like Fall here in Islamorada, Florida Keys. We have had a couple of ‘cool fronts’ where the weather has gotten down to 70 degrees or so, which has helped cool the water down a bit. This has made some of the inshore fish happy especially snook and redfish. The fishing around the mainland cape and some of the island moats and channel runoffs had been good during and right after these fronts. We had some good days of snook and redfish fishing, it was very nice to see some redfish move into these areas as they had been very shallow for most of the summer. Bait has been thick we are in the midst of the fall bait run, and many hungry predators are right nearby. Tarpon can often be seen busting big balls of bait which is an awesome thing to see. Though we have not had the craziness of thousands of tarpon which we saw the last few years during this spectacle, but seems to be fish much more spread out and not as many numbers. We’ve had luck though catching tarpon the last couple weeks, one day we caught 5 out of 12 which was phenomenal! And most days that we have tried we have had luck catching at least one, plus plenty of big blacktips sharks to keep busy. A few of the big winter time tarpon have been in the mix too we had several fish the last week over 100 lbs. In the gulf there have been a handful of spanish mackerel, that fishing should really start to heat up in November and further out in the gulf cobia and tripletail can be found. The patch reefs have been very good too I was out there a few days. We had good action fishing just shrimp with nice size porgies, lots of mutton snappers, yellowtail, bar jacks, and a few hogfish. Had a keeper mutton on the last two trips out there as well which is nice to see on the shallow patches. November is filling up fast give me a call if you want to get out on the water and fish, it is a great time as things are cooling off! 305-747-6903
End of October Florida Keys Backcountry Fishing Report
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Capt. Rick Stanczyk is a locally born and raised charter fishing captain in Islamorada, FL. He caught his first bonefish when he was 3 and has been 'on the water fishing' ever since. He loves what he does and enjoys showing his clients a great time fishing in the Florida Keys. Contact him at 305-747-6903 or rick@fishingislamorada.com!
