12/18/18 – Yesterday I fished a half day and we stuck close to home. We hit the patches which were really good, lots of porgies and mangrove snappers, with a few other odds and ends. We had barrucda on our list of species to try for so we did that too. I tried hard to catch pilchards early on, but it was a little difficult. We did get a few though, and we threw the net some more to get some ballyhoo later while we were fishing. We hooked several cudas, landed one on a shrimp and jig, but the rest were cutting us off unfortunately. Could not get them to eat the wire leader so we were fishing mono with circle hooks, hoping there teeth wouldn’t get it, but no luck. But still lots of fun we did hook a nice 15 lb cuda that jumped multiple times on the light tackle which was a blast. Lots of fish for dinner and still an all around great day!
12/19/19 – Fun day with Spencer, will, and Fisher. Spencer fished with me years ago right when I first had my boat redone. Today we had nice conditions with low tide first thing and incoming water most of the day. A little better today flow than a few days ago too. Winds were not bad northeast going to southeast in the afternoon about 15mph. We had great fishing. Bailed the redfish in the first two places, with some trout mixed in there as well. Fisher also got a flounder which is a little bit of a rare catch for us here in this area. On the second stop Will got his first snook which he wanted, a nice 10 or 11 lber. Fisher got s nice black drum too but pulled the hook near the boat. After that we went up in the sticks to try some spots. More redfish here but Will got one more snook. It seemed hard to find snook but reds were every where we went! We tried a couple more stops on the way back towards home and more redfish in both of them. I think we caught over 100 reds today, no joke! Anyways lots of fun and laughs, the boys are offshore fishing again Saturday. Looks like the next couple of days might be blowouts… 40 mph winds on Friday, and 30 tomorrow with a lot of rain. Of course I’m meeting my customers at the dock in the AM, we will try to get out for at least half a day tomorrow as they have me the next two days. Everyone be safe out there!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
