Well today I had a last minute half day trip fishing in October with Lindsey and Brad. It was part of a big group trip with about 10 boats, they were down from Virginia for a wedding here in the Keys. We had a later than normal departure getting out around 7:30. Brad hadn’t really fished before and Lindsey had but they were up for anything, though requested trying to catch some snappers for dinner. So we gave that a whirl. We caught our pilchards which were pretty easy and tried fishing around some islands. There was a lot of green algae water in the bay, which has been the case for a little while now. We’ve been dealing with algae blooms off and on for the last few years, however it just gets in certain areas and for the most part we know where to stay away from it. But sometimes it’s a gamble as you make a long run and then find the water looking like crud and have to immediately change plans. Today though it wasn’t too bad in the area we went. We picked away at some decent mangrove snappers to start. After an hour or so the tide turned and started coming in, and then it really turned on! Brad got a nice small snook, then a juvenile tarpon, and then a redfish for a backcountry SLAM! Really cool and fairly unexpected in the area we were fishing. But last year actually some of these same fish showed up at the same time of year, with the algae and all, so it seems somewhat of a pattern. Anyways we got our limit of snappers and Lindsey got a nice small redfish too. We had some more time to kill and we tried some bonefish fishing on the way home, no luck with the bones but they each did catch a nice bonnet head shark to round out our half day. Good fishing and lots of fun with nice folks. Back at it tomorrow for a full day, looks like we have a weak cold front coming in so it’ll be blowing out of the west which may or may not be good for our fishing… then a little temperature cool down and hard north wind sunday which will be better than the west wind anyhow.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
