Well the last day I was out a few larger size snook seemed to finally show up in some of spots. This was good to see as I often take my dad out to target these larger behemoths and they just had not really been around in recent months as they were in previous years. I will admit we did get kind of spoiled a few years back landing these very large monster fish and maybe it’s just back to reality now… but anyways it’s good to see a few roaming about. The ones we caught the other day weren’t absolute monsters but they were good 30+ inch fish none the less in the areas. So today I went out with Drew and Sam and knowing we had decent calm conditions for that we gave it a whirl. It was also fairly calm and the bugs had been fairly horrendous in the creeks where I often fish plus the fishing in there just hasn’t been super red hot. So we focused on the big boys and it was good enough for us. First stop we landed a nice 18 lb black drum which was cool on a nice large shrimp. Next stop a medium size snook which wasn’t a monster but good to see him none the less. Next stop a much bigger one that was in the 34 inch range – whew we were on a roll and 3 good fish off 3 different spots. After that we struck out a couple times but then we got the fish of the day about a 25 lb redfish! Awesome to see as the big reds had really been absent this last year and we often see a few of them showing up in October. Though everything as I mentioned previously seems to be a little late this year and it may only be Fall on the calendar right now with the way the weather/bait patterns are. Anyways awesome fish and what I call a Jurassic park slam with a large red, drum, and snook! After that things cooled down with the big boys we tried a couple other spots to no avail. We went inside the creeks and had to jump around a bit we hit a few spots and had a bite or two on some of them but kept pulling the hook on our fish. Finally we got to one last stop and we had a short rally catching 8 or so snook, decent size fish for in the creeks in the 3-6 lb range which was fun. We had a little time left and hit a couple more spot for big boys on the way home and were rewarded with a couple more pretty large snook in the 33-34 inch range! What a way to end the day! So absolutely awesome fishing and I was glad as I had a trip a few days before that just a 3/4 day and we struggled a bit. With the timeframe we had in that day I decided to stick around town to try and catch some local snook as it was a full moon/falling tide in the backcountry which can leave you with some tough fishing windows. Unfortunately it wasn’t too productive no snook for us we did catch some jacks and small cudas, and we did eventually run to some islands a little closer in the bay and caught a handful of snook at least. But today was much better and goes to show sometimes a longer time frame is just going to give you more flexibility which what you try and do and can pay off. I have a few more days open between now and Xmas and I’ll be gone Xmas week. January is more or less booked up for me I have a few dates left but I’ll likely be closing it off this week. February I’ll open some days when we get back from our ski trip probably in mid January… that’s usually when we start tarpon fishing some but who knows what’ll happen next year if we don’t get any cold weather it may start in January?
: @richardstanczyk
: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
Follow for daily updates!
