Backcountry Fishing Reports

Well the weather man was wrong, today was suppose to be rainy and super windy. It was windy but just a normal spring like day blowing 20 to 25 south. The rain held off but is coming tonight. I had Ernie, Michael, and Andy down to fish. We did some snapper fishing early which was very good. Some nice size fish on cut bait and a few redfish mixed in as well. We had though we may just do a half day if the rain came, but it stayed nice so we decided to venture into the backcountry. We did very well back there, tons of redfish as expected and a couple snook, a juvenile Goliath grouper, and some nice jack crevelles. We hit multiple spots and they were all pretty good. I thought the south wind may mess it up a little, but the fish didn’t seem to mind today. Looks like tomorrow will probably be best to stay home, 40 mph west wind. I’m leaving town Saturday but looks like it’ll get nice again right away. If you are looking to come down after Christmas, I still have a couple days open between that and New year’s. Give me a shout and have Merry Christmas!

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

12/18/18 – Yesterday I fished a half day and we stuck close to home.  We hit the patches which were really good, lots of porgies and mangrove snappers, with a few other odds and ends.  We had barrucda on our list of species to try for so we did that too.  I tried hard to catch pilchards early on, but it was a little difficult.  We did get a few though, and we threw the net some more to get some ballyhoo later while we were fishing.  We hooked several cudas, landed one on a shrimp and jig, but the rest were cutting us off unfortunately.   Could not get them to eat the wire leader so we were fishing mono with circle hooks, hoping there teeth wouldn’t get it, but no luck.  But still lots of fun we did hook a nice 15 lb cuda that jumped multiple times on the light tackle which was a blast.  Lots of fish for dinner and still an all around great day!

12/19/19 – Fun day with Spencer, will, and Fisher. Spencer fished with me years ago right when I first had my boat redone. Today we had nice conditions with low tide first thing and incoming water most of the day. A little better today flow than a few days ago too. Winds were not bad northeast going to southeast in the afternoon about 15mph. We had great fishing. Bailed the redfish in the first two places, with some trout mixed in there as well. Fisher also got a flounder which is a little bit of a rare catch for us here in this area.  On the second stop Will got his first snook which he wanted, a nice 10 or 11 lber. Fisher got s nice black drum too but pulled the hook near the boat. After that we went up in the sticks to try some spots. More redfish here but Will got one more snook. It seemed hard to find snook but reds were every where we went! We tried a couple more stops on the way back towards home and more redfish in both of them. I think we caught over 100 reds today, no joke! Anyways lots of fun and laughs, the boys are offshore fishing again Saturday. Looks like the next couple of days might be blowouts… 40 mph winds on Friday, and 30 tomorrow with a lot of rain. Of course I’m meeting my customers at the dock in the AM, we will try to get out for at least half a day tomorrow as they have me the next two days. Everyone be safe out there!

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

Day 2 with Pride and his son Nick.  Yesterday was flat calm and just a perfect day.  Today we had a bit more wind though nothing crazy, but a steady 10-15 mph northwest breeze.  It cooled off a bit too, nothing extreme but got back into the low 60s last night.  We decided to try the cape sable creeks and canals.  We got there and I expected fishing would be pretty good, however it seemed to not be the case!  We tried a good amount of spots in several areas.  A couple produces a handful of fish, but just a few.  A small snook and juvenile goliath in one spot, and another spot we picked maybe 4 or 5 reds and that was about it.  A couple spots that looked good had nothing at all!  Though we had weird tide it was a very weak current, and medium/high water levels, plus the westerly direction of the wind I think kind of mudded up some of the areas.  So it didn’t seem very productive in there.  We bailed and we hit another area where we got into a decent snook bite, although nothing real big though we did lose one nice one.  A handful of redfish here as well.  We found a good load of redfish in another area though, including a few real nice size fish over 24 inches!  Later on we got a handful of black drums maybe 5 or so, and Nick got 2 very respectable snook, one of 12 lbs and one that was probably 16 lbs.  Great way to end the day and Pride and Nick were thrilled with two great days of fishing.  I’ll be back at it tomorrow I think I just have a half day, then fishing through until I leave Saturady for the holidays.  Looks like Thursday and Friday may be nasty weather but of course we all know you don’t really know until it gets here.

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

Great day with great return customer Pride and Cile, who also brought along their kids Nick and Abby. We did a two boat trip with Capt. Bill Bassett. Fishing was really good we all wore out the redfish, and a handful of snook in the mix as well. We then stopped on some structure and Nick caught a nice 30 lb cobia! After that we caught a few nice tripletails, including a monster 15 lber for Capt. Bill and Cile! We found a few more redfish, black drum, and trout on some structure along the shore. Then we tried some other gulf stuff without much luck but we did get a few more tripletails out there. Just an all around fun day with great variety and some tablefare. I have Pride and Nick again tomorrow, hopefully fishing is just as good!

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

Got out with Mark and his son Charlie today for a short notice half day trip.  They booked yesterday however the guide they had was nervous about the weather forecast… it was suppose to be very rainy and hard southwest wind.  I guess he didn’t want to get up in the morning to see, so I was happy to give it a go if it ended up being a nice morning.  Sure enough it was, it was very calm and the rain held off so it was really a gorgeous day to be out at least for the morning.  It was Charlie’s birthday and they had gotten a little sea sick the other day offshore with as rough as it was out there.  So we headed out into the backcountry.  I told them the redfish fishing had been really good and that sounded like fun to them.  Sure enough we got on to a great bite of reds.  It was almost every cast.  Charlie literally dropped a bare hook over and caught one once!  We hit them with bait and artificial.  It was so good it got a little boring, so we decided to just move around in hopes of maybe finding a snook.  Every other spot we hit though there seemed to be a handful of redfish.  But nothing like the first stop.  We did eventually get a snook though so that was good.  Being a half day we just had a couple hours back there, but I think we landed probably 40 fish or so.  We made our way back, still very nice out, and just got back to the dock with about 15 minutes to spare before a squall line came in and it rained for a little bit.  Anyways I always tell my customers just show up in the morning, the weatherman is wrong just as often as he is right!  I’ll be busy the next week until I go out of town for Christmas, but still have a couple open days from Christmas to New Years, then more in January.  January is a very good month to fish for our winter time cast of characters so don’t miss out!

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