Well Pat called me yesterday wanting to get out fishing today. He’d been following my islamorada fishing reports for some time and had the chance to go. I told him no problem. A severe cold front made its way in last night and to be honest it can make the fishing incredible, or it can make it very tough. It really depends how hard it blows, how much sediment gets stirred up in the water, how cold it gets, and how the tide plays into all of that. You honestly don’t really know unless you go. Anyways we went for it I had a good feeling. We were loaded with live shrimp for bait and headed back into the everglades. The ride was a little sport with 30 mph winds, but really not too bad just in a few spots did we get a little wet when we had to go side to the waves, but the majority of the ride was smooth sailing against the shallow banks. We got on the backcountry keys fish right away with a nice red and then jumped a good snook off. We proceeded to catch a vartiety of fish including black drum, snook, one other redfish, and Pat got a nice juvenile tarpon! The fish came in flurries, and patience was key we had to leave the baits sit and just twitch them once in a while. No fast movement. I think we caught close to 3 dozen fish it was pretty darn good! As the tide fell the water muddied up more and the bite seemed to slow down. So we tried some other areas and didn’t have a whole lot of luck back there, I think we caught one more black drum and that was it. We made our way home and that ride was much nicer as the winds had laid down to 15-20, and it was north still so it was behind us more. We had a nice chat with an everglades park ranger who stopped us on the way back, of course all my safety gear was in order! A great day in the backcountry and was a pleasure to get out fishing. Hopefully they bite for us tomorrow I’m taking my dad and then another trip on Tuesday. But I have openings this upcoming weekend if anyone wants to go!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
