Got out with my dad and marina manager Stephen Byrd for a day of fun fishing. I just got back in town from vacation myself after a week. Looks like a busy week coming up and it was such a nice day so wanted to take them while I could. We did a little bit of experimental stuff and hit some deep gulf wrecks, areas I hadn’t been since the storm. We did catch one nice big snook on the way out in the ‘glades, so that was cool. Also saw plenty of tarpon in that area, which we didn’t mess with but will likely give it a shot in the next few days. The gulf water looks great, nice color and quite a bit of bait on several spots. However there just wasn’t much life as far as quality fish went, and a few spots had disappeared. We did find some nice sheepshead on one spot with a ton of little mangrove snapper as well, got one sheep to eat and got a nice one. Lots of fog out there too which was really cool, it really enveloped us and you could hardly see through it for a while. Saw a few tripletails but didn’t spend much time on them as we were making a 60 mile run one way. We hit a few other spots on the way back, and no life on either of them. I was surprised because it seemed like the type of day where there would’ve been some good fish out there. We looked in some channels on the way home and found a few more tarpon in there, caught a nice pompano on a jig messing around, and called it a day. Anyways I think tomorrow we will do some mackerel fishing early I know thats been productive lately, and then give the tarpon a try after that. But it was cool to get way out there and at least I know there is still some structure in a few of those areas way out in the gulf.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
