Well we’re well into January and we’re getting some of our coldest weather of the year! Of course it’s that way all over the country. But we’ve had several good fronts with temperatures dipping into the 50s here in the keys. Fishing has been fair I will say, we were definitely spoiled with some incredible cold-weather fishing several years ago when lots of big snook, big drum, and big redfish were around, and insane numbers of more normal sized fish. However the last few years those cold weather winter days have been a bit more work. Today we got out and it was the coldest I think I’ve seen all year with water temps in the 57 degree range in the backcountry creeks. I knew patience would win the day so we sat and waited some bites out. I was marking good schools of drum around us and after 45 minutes or so we caught a nice 15-18 lb fish! Then another 30 minutes later we caught another smaller one, and a while later a couple other larger ones. Again it took time and that’s to be expected when water temps get that cold. Sometimes you can end up running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to make it happen, but if you’ve been doing this a while you know sometimes you just have to sit and wait. We ended up catching a few snook including a nice 12-13 lber later on. Along with a few decent size redfish. Tried for some big lunkers later on and we did mark a few schools of large fish offshore but they weren’t cooperating today. Yesterday I did that with my dad and our friend Nick, and Nick caught a big redfish close to 30 lbs which made the day! I’ve not run into any of those 30+ lb black drum this winter but maybe they’ll show up somewhere before it warms up. We also had some tarpon action last week on 2 different days. The water was pretty cold in the mid 60s but both days it got fairly calm and sunny, and those fish were doing the spring time thing flopping all around. And we managed a couple bites both days which for mid 60 degree water is all you could ask for. As we get into February look for tarpon to show up more frequently as long as we dont continue to get harsh cold fronts. Typically that’s not been the case in recent years but you never know. Otherwise we’ll keep plugging away on the drum and snook. We’re also now taking bookings on-line through Vally which you can book right here on the website so check it out!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
