Well we’re nearing the end of September and I haven’t been fishing a whole lot, just about a day or so a week. We’re actually having somewhat of an ‘off season’ this year as compared to the last couple of post-COVID years where business just kept rolling right on through the normally slow months of September and October. But honestly everyone down here in the Keys is ready for a little break I think truth be told. Anyways fishing has been decent I will say – not red hot but not terrible. Really the last several times I’ve been in the backcountry over the last 3 weeks we’ve found snook, redfish, tripletail, and a few small tarpon (though haven’t caught tarpon as of late). But no big rallies of fish numbers you fish your good spots where you may normally expect to occasionally bang away at a number of fish and you only end up catching one or two after putting a little time in. So not a bad thing but you just have to jump around and fish hard to put up OK numbers instead of finding one or two of those magical spots where you catch that many fish in one sitting. Personally I don’t mind that – I like to have to work around to catch fish it’s a lot more rewarding and you feel like you are doing something as opposed to sitting on a spot and getting them one after another. Now don’t get me wrong as a guide we always like to get on those spots for at least part of the day to kind of take the stress of finding fish out of the equation! But as mentioned right now just seems like everything is a bit spread out and making you work for it.
The good news is the bait has been plentiful and easy to catch as is often the case in the Fall. And a lot of the bad algae bloom water in the middle bay of Florida is starting to get pushed out towards the gulf where hopefully it’ll get sucked out and go away. We’re currently monitoring this tropical system that is developing and will likely give us some low level tropical storm conditions next week, but this honestly will be a welcome thing as long as it doesnt become a major hurricane as the heavy winds/rain should continue to help clean up the bad water in Florida Bay and give a much needed shock to the system. Look for our post-storm fishing to hopefully get a lot better!
So anyways last couple trips last week I had guys from Pure Fishing (Penn, Berkley, etc…) out and we fished some new artificial baits they were wanting to try as well as our pilchards. Again we picked away on snook probably catching 15 or so, as well as a couple redfish, small goliath grouper, and a tripletail. We did catch 4 or 5 snook on artificial too so that of course was a win! We did end up just fishing a 6 hour day on this trip. And just yesterday I had one of my return customers Lee and his buddy John out for the full day. Lee started fishing with me 15 years or so ago when I first started and still comes down. We had very similar fishing though we just fished bait all day. We had 4 or 5 small goliaths, maybe 18 or so snook, and a couple redfish. So lots of jumping around and working at it but fun day none the less.
So if you are wanting to come down in October give me a shout, fishing should stay fairly good and might get really good after things settle from this storm. Myself and Capt. Brandon have plenty of availability and I’m still offering discounts on trips with Capt. Brandon of 10% and can even offer a discount on lodging if you need it to.
: @richardstanczyk
: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
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