Backcountry Fishing Reports

Capt. Stephen Byrd got out for a couple of days earlier this week on the 25 Contender Bay.  October is here and we’re starting to feel the fall effect – dryer air and some more northeasterly winds.  Lots of bait being pushed down with tons of mullet around as well as pilchards and other things.  Makes getting bait easy for now!  Fishing was decent for him in the backcountry he had a couple of full days back there.  The bite wasn’t super red hot anywhere but he was able to consistently pick fish in many of the usual spots.  With October also comes higher water levels with the king tides so some areas we normally dont fish are more accessible.  He had action with snook, redfish, trout, and several goliath groupers!  They got a large 37″ snook offshore which was a pleasant surprise.  They also mounted one of the goliath groupers they got one day which will be a beautiful wall piece for somebody.  Fishing around the bridges on one of the mornings they also got a juvenile permit which was cool!  There have been a few tarpon around lately but nothing crazy – some years we get a good push in October with all that bait that shows up, however as of now I would say its mediocre you definitely have a shot but might not be red hot fishing where you catch several.  Though of course that can change – it’s fishing – and if its stays fairly warm we may still have some tarpon around in November/December.

October is starting to get a little busy for us with fishing.  Capt. Steve does have a few days open however and I have some days open myself too.  Capt. Trent will be back in town near the end of the month and starting to roll again too.  If you want to book a trip give me a shout and we can let you know whats going on.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina

Well we’re in the midst of summer and getting to the real dog days here where its starting to get hot!  Honestly though it’s not all that bad on the water most days as long as you have a little bit of a breeze.  Also we like to leave the dock plenty early to get our fishing in before the heat gets to you.  So we have had a much better summer of tarpon fishing compared to the earlier spring time of March/April.  May and June got much better and July has overall been really good too.  The last couple of weeks there have been a fair number of tarpon out in the backcountry.  I’ve had several banner days with double digit bites so about as good as you could ask for.  Though I also did have one day where the tarpon were there they just weren’t biting in the window we were fishing.  That day it was a bit windier and we had falling tide and just tried all we could to get them to react but not much.  Finally at the end of that trip I gave it an extra 30 minutes once the tide started in and we did definitely jump one fish and possibly had another bite but neither of them stayed connected for us.  Unfortunately that’s how fishing goes and I always tell people I do what I can which this time of year means leaving the dock early, either already having or spending time catching fresh bait, running far and timing the tides as best we can where we fish.  But overall it’s not a bad time to come and hopefully August and September will continue producing for us.  There have been some big snook in the mix too we were catching some back in June randomly while tarpon fishing several days.  I’ve actually tried targeting them in the last couple of weeks with my dad and we had luck on both days catching 3 each day and that is of course of those size L and XL fish.  I actually caught one myself that may have been the biggest I’ve ever landed and I think was close to 30 lbs.  If you want to get out in the next couple of months shoot me an email I definitely will have some time in August available as well as in September.  September we are offering discounts too and barring any hurricanes that is often a great time of year to fish.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina

Well summer time is here and I’ve been starting to mix it up a little more with the backcountry fishing.  We had kind of a tougher tarpon season overall and so the last few weeks I’ve been going in the backcountry and picking a few tarpon but we’ve had some decent snook fishing.  Bait’s been fair with some spots holding some nice pilchards which are always a good addition to have to our usual shrimp we bring.  The creeks and mangroves have held some good numbers of snook at times with a few small redfish and goliath groupers mixed in.  I had some very good tarpon fishing in the deep backcountry in early May for a few weeks.  That had since dried up but we did find another school of tarpon in some of the closer backcountry areas we had some luck with this past week.  June should yield some good opportunities for both tarpon and snook and likely some redfish, tripletail, goliaths, and other things mixed in.  We even had some large jumbo snook make an appearance a couple weeks ago.  It was pretty interesting we were running back along the shore and saw a big bust which I thought was tarpon.  We stopped to look around and marked some fish on the sidescan which I was sure were tarpon.  Sure enough we put our big baits out and we caught a couple of 18-20 lb snook!  I think there were some tarpon mixed in but I think a lot of those must’ve been snook because the next day we fished the same area and the same thing happened we caught 1 big snook!  So pretty cool to stumble into that randomly.  I hadn’t been finding a whole lot of big snook in any of my other usual haunts but hopefully they’ll show up in June or July that usually becomes something thats a possibility during the summer.  Anyways we have availability in June and I’ll be booking myself personally in July a little more short notice because we have some tentative trips planned.  But Capt. Steve and Capt. Trent will be available for sure.  Shoot me a message if you want to ask any questions or get something booked!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina

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

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