Got out with Blayze and his family for his birthday trip down to Islamorada. They fished yesterday with my brother and got a big swordfish so they were stoked. Today we had a half day scheduled fishing in the islamorada backcountry. He said he would like to try and catch reds as he saw we had a good day last week, though I told him it could be hit or miss on a half day as you have limited time especially when we have to run an hour to those areas. But I figured we’d have a shot at catching other stuff if they weren’t cooperating. We had plenty of shrimp and I had some bait penned up that I caught yesterday, and I still have some in the pens for any upcoming trips in the next few days if anybody wants to go! We ran back towards the flamingo area and tried some snook spots. Not much there though we did find one good branch that had a few fish, I think we caught 4 and blayze also got a his first saltwater catfish though we don’t like to brag about those! After that I decided to try some other areas on the way home. We lucked out and found a good school of redfish in one! I hadn’t caught reds in there myself ever, though I know a long long time ago they use to get in there sometimes. I think the storm may have cleaned some old time areas out that have been grown over and had the bottom filled with dead grass – now some of those have cleaned up and have more hard bottom that these fish like! Anyways we only spent about 40 minutes there but I think we caught close to a dozen reds, one nice 8 lb snook, and 8 keeper mangrove snappers for dinner! 3 of the snappers were jumbos too 2-3 lbers. Just an awesome way to end our trip and I found out something new which I always like! I’ve got plenty of open days this week and am offering discounted trips until 12/23/17 due to hurricane IRMA. So if you are around give me a shout let’s go fishing!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
