Got out with Jim, Jay, and Andrew today for a full day of fishing. I’ve been off the last week or so, welcoming my new boy Beau into the world who was born on Tuesday! After a few sleepless nights it was good to get out on the water and will have some more time off coming up with him. Anyways we decided to leave closer to day break to catch our pilchards nearshore in Islamorada before heading into the backcountry. The baits been pretty easy to catch the last month or so and some nice baits available. We blacked out our well in one throw of the net, loaded with pilchards and had some shrimp too. We ran into the backcountry, it was windy blowing a good 20 knots out of the east. The fish didn’t mind though, we caught a nice triple tail and sheepshead in the first stop, then a few snook and some redfish in the next stop with a few jacks in the mix too. One nice snook there for Jay about a 10 lber! The we ran further back and found a few more snook around an island, and worked a shoreline pretty hard to get one more. After that things slowed down for a little bit as we got to the top of the tide and the current slacked off. Then it started to fall and we got into another spot that turned on for us. We switched to shrimp and had some better luck with that here, catching another half dozen snook, a few more redfish, and a half dozen nice trout! Good little flurry of action. We ran back towards home and tried a couple more spots, banging out one more snook in one spot, then hitting the last stop with our last dozen baits. We got lucky and got five real nice snook here, and Andrew finished the day with a nice juvenile 15 lb tarpon! He didn’t cooperate for a picture unfortunately. Sometimes that last stop of the day is the best one! Anyways fun to get out and do some different stuff. We had such good late season tarpon fishing I’d been focused on that all through September and a little in October. But it’s definitely getting into the fall where it’s time to mix things up a little more. As things cool off, look for the snook, redfish, trout, and drum fishing to get better. Also the mackerels should show up in the gulf along with a few cobia and tripletail. Give me a shout if you are interested in getting out fishing!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
