Backcountry Fishing Reports

Got out with Nathan and his wife Heather for a 3/4 day today.  Nathan is friends with Chad Crawford who does a TV show called How to do Florida which we’ve done a few episodes with him for the marina.  The weather was nice still slightly chilly with a slight northwest breeze but overall pretty calm.  The water got real pretty in a lot of spots.  We caught a good number of redfish in the first area, then a few jacks and mackerels moved in and it quieted down.  We moved around and got into another good bite of redfish, a couple bigger fish and a nice snook.  But again the jacks got on us and it was hard to get through them.  After that we ran and tried another area, got a nice 12 lb snook there.  We headed up the coast and fished a few sandbars, got a black drum off each one of them nothing huge but one was a decent 7 or 8 lber.  We then got shallow and found a good number of redfish again with a couple more drum and a couple small snook.  Ran around and tried some more areas, a few more reds and snook, and then found some floating tripletail.  We caught 1 but missed another bigger one that was about 10 lbs.  On the way home tried a new spot where I’d caught a few big snook in the summer.  Today was the right day we caught a half dozen big redfish in the 10 to 15 lb range!  Also had a few more tripletails float by us but we were busy with the reds.  All in all a fantastic day in the bay, looks like it’ll cool down again tonight and north wind tomorrow, I think that’ll actually be better for the fishing again.  I’ll be back at it tomorrow and Thursday then taking Friday off.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Fun 3/4 day with Mike, Mike, and Anthony! It finally cooled off for real here in the last couple days with a chilly cold front. Got into the 60s in the keys an time to pull out the sweatshirts and jeans. The winds had laid down nicely though and it wasn’t an extremely cold situation. We worked around a half dozen areas, though one was much more productive than the rest. The fish were happy we caught a pile of redfish, including a few nice size ones in the 12 – 15 lb range. As it warmed up the snooks came out to play, we caught one real nice 15 lber plus a couple others in the 10 lb range, and a good handful of smaller size ones too. Also a couple black drums. Active morning it was very nice by the time we had to head home, and looks like it’ll stay chilly but no crazy wind so should be good for the fishing now that they’re adjusted to the cool off. Back at it tomorrow.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Mark and his brother Barry today along with my dad.  Mark is the former mayor of Islamorada and his brother Barry has worked at Bud n Marys for a few years now.  We had a great day it slicked out between fronts here as it’s suppose to cool off more tomorrow though not get real cold.  Fishing was really good we found some good numbers of snook and redfish.  Got into a handful of very large snook too, probably two of them that were 18-20 lbs, and one 15 lber.  Also plenty of medium to large size in the 6 to 10 lb range.  Reds were very stout too a few that were 12 to 14 lbs, and plenty of 6 to 8 lbers.  We also finished up the day with a couple nice tripletail we saw quite a few floating by.  All in all a stellar beautiful day on the water, a little more cool weather should keep the bite good!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with new customers Aaron and his son Alex today for a full day trip.  They hadn’t been in the backcountry before and were eager to try some new types of fishing.  We had fairly blustery conditions, 15-20 mph easterly winds.  I didn’t fish the last couple days but Saturday it blew 30+ mph as we had a major weather system come in… didn’t get very cold but it was a cold front and did drop temperatures down slightly 5 to 10 degrees maybe.  We had the last trickle of falling tide and caught a black drum to start then nothing but catfish.  Moved around a few spots waiting for the tide change and didn’t catch much.  Once the tide started in we started to pick away, a few redfish, a couple more drum, and a few snook.  Did that for an hour or so, no monsters but some decent fish.  We made another move and then got into some more fish.  Again not every cast but we caught them in flurries, a good handful of redfish, a real nice 12 lb snook and a 12 lb red, a few more small black drum, a sheepshead, and a few other randoms like jacks and ladyfish.  After that we went and fished a shallow sand bar that had some fish on it last week.  Lucky us it was holding again today and we caught probably 2 dozen redfish here, another half dozen snook, some trout, and a few other odds and ends.  So I would say the bite got better and better as the day went on and we finished strong.  The boys caught a mess of fish and the wind didn’t deter us.  Looks like we have some calmer weather tomorrow, I’m taking my dad fun fishing, then another front this weekend will drop it into the 60s at night!  Looking forward to some cooling off, we should get some big fish showing up when the water temperatures dip down into the 60s, may take a day or two for them to adjust but getting to the ‘cold weather’ fishing time that I love in the winter!  Have a few more days open through the 24th then I’ll be going out of town for Thanksgiving and back around December 3rd.  Plenty of days open in December give me a shout if you are interested!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out filming today for episode 4 of the BNM YouTube show!  We mixed it up a bit to try and show some different stuff.  Caught a few nice snook, reds, and drums early on just cause it looked good, and also bagged a nice 30 lb tarpon on light tackle!  Nice way to start the day.  Then we went out in the gulf.  Found some big pods of bait and got into some monster spanish mackerel.  It was fun as we were able to chase and cast to them, as opposed to sitting and chumming.  But nice size fish!  We also got some jacks, a pompano, and a few trout and sharks while doing this.  We finished the day catching several goliath groupers, one was about 300 lbs!  Was hoping we’d find a few cobia or permit but unfortunately no luck there, there was a boat on one spot where we wanted to go but that looked like it’d of been the place!  Anyways great fishing still!  Looks like we have some weather coming in the next week bringing some cooling off.  It’ll be good for the backcountry for sure… snook, drums, reds, etc… should be firing off.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing