8/20/15 August Islamorada Fishing Report

August is winding down and we are getting into our ‘slow’ season here.  I’ve been lucky and still filling in many days with last minute bookings though as we get into September it will be time to relax.  I have a trip to the Bahamas planned (hopefully) if hurricane Danny doesn’t have anything to say about it!  As far as fishing goes things have been decent I’ve been mostly tarpon fishing still doing the early morning drill in the everglades.  Bait has been a little tough to come by some days, on the incoming tides it has been much easier.  Fishing has been OK overall we’ve had some big days with multiple fish landed, and some days with only a bite or two and lucky to catch one.  In the last couple weeks we had a few 4 tarpon days, one day with 6 landed, and a couple others with 3.  The last few days has been a lot tougher we only had 3 bites in the last 2 trips, but we did manage to catch one on each trip.  The backcountry channels have been holding a handful of fish though they are moving around so it’s trial and error trying to hit them early in the mornings.  Later on off the beaches to the west near the gulf had been a little more consistent finding schools of tarpon out there, however a couple days it has been a ghost town and the next day they will be all over the place.  Though it is getting late in the year so it is not uncommon you just have to put your time in.   Sharks have been mixed in including plenty of blacktips, some big lemons, and occasionally some others like hammerheads or bulls.  I haven’t done a lot of snook fishing the last few weeks though the last few days I did earlier in the month we had some success.  Not a lot of big pilchards around but pinfish did the trick and we had several good days with multiple snook caught each of those days.  In the gulf bays there have been some good sized mangrove snappers and hanging the chum bag you can usually catch some ballyhoo or something to use for cut bait to get them.  A few trout have been mixed in too.  That’s my report as I said September is definitely our quietest month of the year as far as business goes, but that doesn’t mean the fishing isn’t good.  Actually since not too many boats are out you can often feel like you have the entire backcountry to yourself and don’t have to worry about boats being ‘in your spot.’  If you are thinking of coming down drop me a line it usually won’t be a problem to set something up short notice.  October is right around the corner and that is usually very good fishing as things cool off a little bit and we start to get the fall bait run.  That can be some of the best tarpon fishing of the year and also really good for redfish, snook, trout, and other specimens.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk