We finally had our first real cold front of the winter a few days ago. Temperatures have finally dropped into the 60s and looks to be cooling down a little again this weekend after slowly warming up some. Today we fished back in the everglades with my dad, his girlfriend, and friend Dave Peck. It looked to be the ‘ideal’ conditions for fishing some of the deeper canals and such this time of year. Usually after a good cold front in January when you have a nice slow incoming tide, you can get hordes of big snook and drum showing up in some areas back there. We ran back early and it was a foggy morning which is unusual here. Though this winter we’ve seen it a few times as it’s been super warm so any little temperature fluctuation with the moist air it can creep up. We fished a few areas using large shrimp on troll-rites. It was not a red hot bite and had I not had confidence in the conditions, I may have moved after not catching fish in the first 10 minutes. Though we waited it out and eventually we caught some nice snook, black drums, and couple straggling redfish. You would have to work the bait very slow and patiently, and only get a bite maybe every 10 or 15 minutes. But quality fish. Dave got a very big snook one of the largest I’ve ever had caught in light tackle of 15 lbs or so. It really ran like a beast all the way across the canal and was a good 5 minute battle. Later we moved deeper into the canal and tried a black drum hole. Same deal it wasn’t red hot action but eventually we got a double header of smaller black drums. Then Dave again caught a nice size black drum. Then a couple other smaller ones. Then before leaving I hooked a lunker 25 lber that we landed. What a fish he was a thumper! All good fun well now we tried some of the outside shorelines since the tide was getting high. We caught one little snook in one spot, then we tried another area and got into a load of redfish. Not huge ones but we probably caught a dozen or so plus a couple more snook. It was great to see the small reds as they have been a little scarce this year. Anyways it was a banner day with a total of 15 or so reds, 8 snook, and 8 black drums. We wrapped it up around 12:30 when we ran out of shrimp and made our way home. January is usually a very good month for this winter time fishery in the everglades, however this year it’s been a little more up and down with the lack of cold weather. Though as I said it looks to stay cool through into next week and hopefully we may got another front or two between now and the end of February. Otherwise the tarpon should be showing up early and there are plenty of other options too! I know the patch reef fishing has been very good we got into some nice hogfish, porgy, groupers, and variety of snappers out there the other day. And good spanish mackerel fishing in the gulf as well with some cobias and tripletail mixed in.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
December Fishing in Islamorada
Well I’ve been out of town quite a bite the last couple months and have not been fishing frequently just a little here and there. Anyways we are getting back to busy time and I will be hard at it for a while here now. Fishing during the late fall/early winter has been up and down. We have yet to have any significant cold weather, most likely due to the ‘el nino’ in the pacific. It is keeping the warmer air to the south east. We’ve had some terrible rain the last month mixed in with high winds. Though today was gorgeous – it was nice to see the sun again after a wet week last week. Anyways we’ve been doing a little bit of everything and nothing has been great consistently. The mackerels in the gulf which are usually swarming now are there but you must have patience and work for them. Catching 15 in a day is a good day, not the muggings of 30-40 fish. In the backcountry there have been some drum, snook, and trout, though they haven’t been getting into the usual ‘winter time’ digs. The deeper holes where they are easy to catch on shrimp and such. A few here and there but there too you must work for them. Today we had a great day we were able to get live pilchards and pinfish and we worked some creeks and came away with double digit snook, a nice little tarpon and jumped a few more, and finished up with some small redfish to complete a SLAM. Now early this week after the hard rains fishing was very difficult back there. We fished some of the same areas and there was not much at all. We did catch 3 nice size snook which made the day, and then finished with a handful of trout and ladyfish in the bay. I would say the most consistent action is out on the patch reefs. We did well a few times out there with good numbers of porgy and mixed in are small mutton snappers, mangrove snapper, yellowtails, bar jacks, and a handful of hogfish. The hogfish haven’t been hot and heavy yet but once we get some cold (if we get some cold) that should turn on more too. Even a few cero mackerel have been out there too. Anyways if you are looking to get out there drop me a line, I would love to take you. If the weather stays warm just about anything is possible too!
Backcountry fishing in September Video
Fishing in the Islamorada backcountry with Capt. Rick Stanczyk and Capt. Nick Stanczyk. We catch some live pilchards and fish the creeks for snook, redfish, tarpon, and baby goliath grouper.
Fishing with Crabs in Islamorada
Fishing with crabs in Islamorada is done all throughout the year. There are many species of fish which enjoy a delectable crab once in a while. Often times there are many fish that you wouldn’t even think that will eat a crab. Typically the most common targets with crabs are tarpon and permit. Tarpon typically like the larger blue crabs while permit prefer smaller sized ones, of course the size of the target fish may call for a different sized crab. For tarpon the most common methods of fishing with crabs usually involves drifting. The most standard rig is using a heavier spinning or conventional rod loaded with 50 lb braid, or 30 lb mono. Most guides nowadays prefer fishing braided lines as you can fish heavier line, get more line on the spool, it doesn’t have near the amount of memory like mono filament which will twist up on you after reeling against the drag on a fish, and it is very tough and long lasting. Now one drawback of braided line for tarpon is there is no ‘give’ in the line, so we usually put a good 15 or 20 feet of 60# monofilament on top of the braid, then have that go to your main leader. The main leader consists of a swivel, about 8 feet of 80# or 100# monofilament, and your hook (usually something in the 6/0 to 8/0 range, J hook or circle hook will work), and a bobber up near the swivel. Tarpon fishing with crabs can be good all throughout the year, but usually starting in the spring through early summer is when they work the best…[sociallocker id=”692″] Crabs should be hooked through the corner of their shell, try to avoid hooking them in the meat as that will kill them after some time. I like to use a smaller hook to start the hole when hooking them on, that way you won’t dull your main hook. Drifting often works best as it keeps the crabs from spinning in the current, especially when the tide is running hard. You can anchor in certain areas with them, however if you are in hard current (typically around the bridges) it is usually better to drift. If you see your crabs spinning funny when you are anchored, then there is too much current to stay and fish like that. You want to try and set your drift up with the wind and tide so you drift over areas where you know tarpon are. I like to try and fish two baits at least, and keep them out a good 50 to 100 feet. It is important to check your crabs for weed or grass once in a while, as they will often try to bury themselves in that stuff when it floats by. You can do this by slowly lifting on the rod tip once in a while and see if it feels heavy, especially at night when you may not be able to see the bait/bobber. When a tarpon bites you usually just want to reel, with a J hook giving them a small thump after you reel and get tight is OK. With a circle hook just keep the rod pointed at them and reel, and wait about 15 seconds before lifting the rod top. Using crabs for bait in Islamorada for tarpon is a lot of fun!
Fishing for permit with crabs is also a lot of fun. This can often be done in similar fashion to tarpon fishing, and you may even catch one on accident doing that once in a while. Though when targeting permit specifically you will want to use much lighter leader, usually fluorocarbon. 30# to 40# test is usually good for larger permit, and sometimes it may require you to go down to as light as 20#. I like to have 5 feet of leader or so, to prevent permit from being able to see your knot connection to your mainline. The long wind-on leader is not required here, so going straight from 20# braid to your main fluorocarbon leader works well. They can be very picky so fluorocarbon is usually a must. A smaller hook of 3/0 to 4/0 size is usually sufficient, I prefer a circle hook for them. You can drift areas where you know permit are, or set up and anchor and let them hover over a wreck, structure, etc… that has permit schooling around it. Permit crab fishing can be very tricky. Sometimes you can cast to permit as well and using a small jighead works well for this, or even just a bare hook with a crab on it. If the permit are not biting what you are offering, usually you need to go with lighter leader, smaller hook, or try to get the presentation out further away from the boat. When casting to permit, try to lead them sufficiently – you don’t want to bop them right on top of the head, but rather through 15-20 feet in front of them and let them swim to your bait as it drifts down in front of them naturally.[/sociallocker]
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
305-747-6903
rick@fishingislamorada.com
9/20/15 September Islamorada Fishing Report
September is winding down though it has given me a welcomed break from fishing every day. It is always our slowest month of the year. Thankfully though as I mentioned it is a welcome one, a time to catch my breath and take care of all the things in life you can’t get to when you are so busy. Anyways fishing can still be good this time of year it is just slow on the business side of things – with kids going back to school, hunting seasons opening everywhere, the possibilities of hurricanes (though unlikely), and the heat – all seem to keep it quiet here for the month. Anyhow I have been getting out a couple days a week. I’m not currently running my SeaCraft as it is getting some repair work done, but I am running a smaller action craft skiff. I’ve still had the majority of my customers asking for tarpon and there have still been a few around. It hasn’t been red hot action every day, though we have caught them just about every day we fished for them I think with exception to one. A few days we had multiple shots and were able to land a couple fish, the others it was only a single shot but we got one. Bait was fairly plentiful on the incoming tides in the backcountry, the falling tides it was a little tougher though we had gotten lucky a couple times and found some big schools of mullet in the gulf. The sharks had been few and far between, though after the hard rains last week with the water cooling down about 10 degrees we did have some good shark action while tarpon fishing which was nice. It is always nice to have that filler in between while waiting for a tarpon bite. In the near-gulf bays the snapper fishing has been really good I’ve been chunking up mullet or ballyhoo and catching some big snappers. This has been the best bet for action/rod bending, and there are big ladyfish and a few trout mixed in too. This is not as tidal related and can be good into the Fall. Snook and redfish have been around though honestly I haven’t done much of it as the bugs have been horrendous with all the rain we had, plus it has been difficult to find any good size pilchards. My future forecast for October is… [sociallocker id=”692″] looking pretty good! October is one of my favorite months to fish down here in Islamorada with the start of cooler weather coming our way. We usually get a week or two of insane fishing with the ‘fall bait run.’ There is no way to tell when this will occur but when we start getting some northerly breezes it will push hordes of baitfish down the coast and the big predators follow right along. Big tarpon, sharks, snook, redfish, and everything… When the bait run occurs, sometimes you can see hundreds of tarpon in an area busting on all kinds of baitfish, it is pretty spectacular. Anyhow even if that is not occurring it can still be good fishing. Tarpon are definitely still a possibility then too but it may not be the insane show that the bait run brings. I will start to focus more on catching smaller whitebait (pilchards) and the snook/redfish fishing. With the cooler temperatures look for those fish to push out of the skinny water flats into the island moats, shorelines, and creeks where we fish in the Fall. Other options are the gulf as spanish mackerel can sometimes make an early arrival, plus there are tripletail out there and cobias on the deeper wrecks. Anyways the point is October ca be very good fishing, business is still fairly slow so you can often have the backcountry to yourself with very good fishing to boot. Drop me a line if you are looking to go out![/sociallocker]
