Got out with Terry and his dad Pauly today. Pauly is a young 90 years old and wanted to catch some fish! We started out loading up the live wells with live shrimp from the bait shop and pilchards that we netted. I was able to find them early before the guys got to the dock so that was nice. Lots of sandy key pilchards not the razor bellies that we usually prefer, but they work just fine. They just don’t stay as lively especially later in the day. We headed into the everglades first to do a little snook fishing with pilchards. There was a lot of boat traffic being a gorgeous day and a weekend, but we were able to find a few fish away from the crowds. Pauly landed the largest fish, he caught two nice snook! Terry got a few more than that but mostly little guys. It was fun though and we saw some cool crocodiles which was neat. After that things slowed down a little and I decided to go try fishing for the spanish mackerels in the gulf of mexico. It normally starts to get fairly good this time of year but it hadn’t yet, I think due to the hurricane and lack of cold weather. Things did cool down a tad while I was gone though and the water look beautiful which was good to see. We chummed hard and soon we had some mackerels buzzing around the boat. The boys each caught a good handful, and we had quite a few more that we lost. They were grabbing the pilchards and slicing them in half, just not getting the hook as often as I’d like. But still good fun! We also caught a few lane snappers, blue runners, big ladyfish, and bluefish. All in all a great day on the water, the guys had a lot of fun and caught quite a few species of fish. I don’t have much going on this week so if anybody wants to go fishing give me a shout, weather and conditions look to stay reasonably favorable… the wind may kick up some Tuesday especially but other then that looks OK!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
