Got out with our pal Ron Modra and he brought along a good friend of his Ronnie Dunn of Brooks & Dunn, along with Ronnies son Jesse and grandon Huxton! It was quite the day we found plenty of small finger mullets deep in the backcountry. There has been a pretty steady bait run back there the last month… it’s not always easy to find and sometimes the bait kinda moves around, but for the most part on falling tides we’ve been able to get in on it. We caught a bunch of ’em and proceed to feed them to plenty of small & medium size snooks. The boys all had a ball Huxton caught the most and was kind of putting on a clinic! After that we went and found a big spawning aggregation of large snook that we found the previous day. They were really biting today we ended up hooking i think 6 or 7 and landed 5, mostly all in one area which was really cool. Often times with those big ones you are lucky to get one and then they shut off but maybe the full moon had them a little happier? It was really incredible and Huxton also caught and landed a large 75 lb goliath grouper on light tackle which was really cool. After that the weather started to build and we ran towards home though we ended up coming across a school of rolling tarpon where it was still all slicked out. We put baits out for about 15 minutes and Ronnie ended up landing a juvenile tarpon (under 40 inches) so we lifted him out for a quick picture before healthy release. Huxton caught another big snook too which was following the tarpon around I guess which was really cool and unexpected. After that we headed home but wow just what an incredible day it was!
Fishing is still really good and August is slow with business so if you want to get out fishing give me a shout! I’ll be taking a handful of trips here & there but Capt. Stephen is back in town from the Bahamas and I’m working closely with him so he’s up to date on everything going on in the backcountry. Come get it while the gettin’s good!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
