Got out will Bill, Taylor, and Tucker for a days fishing in the Florida Keys. Christmas week is here and boy the traffic has sure showed up and people are here. Should be a busy one luckily the weather looks warm and we have a couple windy days over the weekend but next week looks very nice. Not cold though and no hard fronts in sight, usually January is when we get our coldest weather of the year and I look forward to it as it leads to some great fishing opportunities, but I’ll be out of town the first week anyways so it can wait on me if it wants! Fishing was pretty good for us today, started off OK we got into a slow but steady pick of black drums, several small guys and a few mediums, but then we got a big mama 25ish lber that took about 10 minutes to land! What a battle on light tackle lots of fun. After that things shut off, we tried a couple other spots without too much but did pick off a nice sheepshead, a redfish, a mackerel, and a few catfish. But falling tides have been tough in the backcountry with the warmer weather and windy conditions making it muddy. When the tide turned we moved areas and got into a good bite. Lots of redfish, then the snook turned on, and a few more black drums and sheepshead too. We tried one last spot in hopes of something big, and found some more smaller snook and a black drum. Hooked a big ray, and then a big shark that dragged us around but not what we were hoping for in terms of big. But all in all still a great day, double digits on black drum, snook, and redfish can’t complain about that. Saturday will be super busy on the water I’m sure everything that floats will be out there. Not sure what we are doing but we’ll see.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
