1/28/17 Fishing Islamorada in January

Got out with the Thompson crew some of my regulars down from the Connecticut area.  They’ve always been lucky enough to catch really good fishing it seems the last several years.  It cooled off a bit last night though the water was still fairly warm and lots of muddy areas still though its getting better.  Winds were kicking 15-20 mph out of the north.  We got out to the mackerel grounds early and had good action there.  Plenty of spanish mackerel on shrimp and jigs, as well as some snappers, blue runners, and even a small gag grouper.  After a couple hours of that we headed back towards the cape, not too bad of a run as we were able to go right into the sea and eventually get up near the banks for the rest of it.  The cape was very busy being the weekend which is why I didn’t want to bank on the trip back there.  We were able to sneak into a couple areas and caught a handful of snook, 5 or so, and a small goliath grouper.  Not too bad!  After that we decided to try and catch some big stuff for the last hour.  The sharks were pretty active since the water was still above 70, and we also caught a larger goliath grouper about 75 lbs, and 3 lemon sharks.   All in all a good day for sure, looks like we are getting some rain tomorrow and it’s suppose to be in the 50s the next 3 nights, so glad I am off tomorrow.  Monday/Tuesday I’m available though will likely be taking my dad fishing one of those days…  We may just have the conditions for some epic backcountry fishing for snook/reds/drum…

Capt. Rick Stanczyk