Got out for a fun trip with my dad Richard Sr, Stephen Byrd, and friend Capt. Dave Peck. We decided to try some stuff that I hadn’t fished in a while and explore a little. We caught some pilchards early on and had good live shrimp so we were baited up. Catching pilchards in November for fishing is a time honored tradition for getting on those ‘hot bite’ days. We banged away at some nice flamingo redfish in the first place we stopped landing quite a few. I got a nice big one as we moved a little further down working the edges of the structure we were fishing. Casting accurately is key in these situations and I had a boat full of excellent anglers so we made it look easy. We tried some other points and all the ones that had pretty looking water were holding plenty of fish. Got into some snook on the next one which was fun to mix it up. We then tried another area nearby that I hadn’t fished in years. Nothing in the first place but we moved down again and same thing once we found nice looking water with a little current moving it was game on. Some more redfish and then the snook started chomping! We lost a big one and caught a couple nice ones too. We then tried another spot and I got one nice snook there. The tide was now starting to fall and so things were starting to get shallow in the areas we had been fishing. I noticed some bait flipping and we made a throw with the cast net, and got a bunch of baby threadfin herring! These are great baits but they normally don’t keep very good when you net them, but these ones maybe because they were small didn’t do bad. They were even still alive when we got home. Anyways the next few stops we didn’t catch much, but we tried one other area before calling it a day. The snook were stacked up here, lots of little guys though we did catch a few decent ones on our new threadfins. We tried one other piece of structure in the area and we were about to call it quits when Dave hooked a monster snook, the biggest of the day! Unfortunately after one good jump he threw the hook and we were a little depressed. But I caught another smaller snook and then also landed a respectable 6 lber. I think the one he lost may of been a 10 lber though it was a very nice looking fish! Anyways that was all she wrote and we headed home victors of the day. I think we all landed fish in the double digits with close to 50 snook and reds. Just an awesome day one of the best if not the best I’ve had since Hurricane Irma. I don’t have anything on the books for a little bit here, so if anybody wants to go especially later this week, we look to have similar conditions. The weekdays are best as there are no crowds back there and that leaves many more options open as far as places to fish! Give me a shout!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
