Another fabulous day out on the water here in Islamorada, Florida Keys. Got out for some ‘fun fishing’ with my dad, Richard Stanczyk Sr. and his friend and neighbor Peter. Temperatures stayed cool last night in the low 60s in the keys and the winds calmed down somewhat to 10-15 mph northeast and got even calmer by the afternoon. The water temperatures in the backcountry dipped further, getting down around 64 in some of the areas we fished first thing in the morning. Sometimes though that is a recipe for good fishing and today that was the case! We were able to get our hands on some good live shrimp which is usually all you need when the water is as cold as it was. The water had cleaned up a bit more from yesterday so we found fish in a few more areas. Started off slow but as things warmed up and the tide got moving, the bite picked up. We picked away at a handful of black drums early on. Saw quite a few juvenile tarpon rolling around but they weren’t too interested in our offerings, but that didn’t surprise me with as chilly as it was. After an hour or so of that we got into a good school of redfish and snook! It was fast and furious for a little while and we landed probably 8 snook and half a dozen reds. That slowed down and the catfish showed up so we decided to move. I tried some shoreline areas as it was a little later and things got even warmer. We didn’t have a whole lot of luck with that, but we did manage a nice snook at least. After that we just looked around a bit and enjoyed the beautiful morning and all the wild bird life. We tried a couple more shorelines on the way home and caught a few more catfish. We were just about to give up and then all of a sudden Peter got a snook, and then my dad hooked a larger one. His ended up being the snook of the day, a nice 8 lber or so.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
