Backcountry Fishing Reports

Got out with Mike today down from ND for a 3/4 day of fishing.  He didn’t have any specific species in mind for targeting.  I told him it had been a little tough out back the last few days from what I’d heard, and since we just had a 3/4 day I knew that wouldn’t leave us a lot of time to switch gears once we made the hour+ trek back there if things didn’t work out well.  So we decided to stay close and fish the patches and local areas.  We spent a good hour or so looking for live bait but didn’t have much luck with that, only found one school of baby pilchards which were hardly worth throwing on, but I did get a few of them.  Bait has not been consistent as of late.  Luckily the live shrimp have been good size.  November patch reef fishing is usually a good bet as the water temperatures dip down and the shallow reefs become alive.  We had good action in a couple spots with various types of snappers.  We got some nice mangrove snappers for dinner and Mike planned on a little hook and cook at lazy days.  We also got some juvenile muttons, yellowtails, and a few grunts.  One spot had a good school of yellow bar jacks too which were fun they pull a good bit!  After that we tried a bay spot for some mackerel, but we had a weak tide going into the wind and not much happened there at all.  We decided to finish up by trying some stake up bonefishing, which I don’t really do a whole lot of.  We tried a couple different flats on the ocean side, but no bonefish bites.  We did get a small bonnethead shark and a couple rays though.  Anyways I’m not booked tomorrow, then have sunday and monday on the books, and going out of town tuesday for thanksgiving.  If you want to go tomorrow give me a shout, or I have some days available after thanksgiving starting next Saturday!  Hopefully we will get a little blast of cold weather sometime in the next week to spark up the winter time fishing.

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

Got out with Gus and his friend Capt. Rick Rodriguez who runs a charter boat here in town.  I hadn’t met Rick before but he got my name through a mutual friend.  Gus and him wanted to catch some snook and had been friends for a long time, so Rick didn’t mind being the tourist for a day.  I caught a bunch of bait yesterday so we were well prepared and headed out early.  Live pilchards for backcountry fishing make a huge difference when the water is fairly warm like it is.  Snook just love live pilchards!  We found them in the first 3 spots we fished.  Not a ton of fish, but we probably caught half a dozen in each stop.  We also found a few nice size spotted seatrout.  Even though november is snook season in florida we opted for catch and release, as I don’t really like to kill snook as there are other more plentiful fish that are just as good to eat.  If you are wondering about how to fish for snook in the florida keys, it’s pretty simple.  We fish circle hooks with either free lined, or lightly weighted, and throw them in known ‘snook holes’.  Snook like to hang out often along the mangrove-laden shorelines, creek mouths, and oyster bars.  Some of these are easy to see, others you have to know where they lie in the water.  Anyways it was good action in the morning.  Later on in the day we had a couple spots with nothing, then we found a few more snook and got a nice juvenile redfish fishing a little shoreline of an island.  Later on we found a bunch of small tarpon rolling about and tried to get them to play, but not much luck with that.  We did get a nice 50 lb bull shark though on our light tackle rig which was a fun way to end the day.  It was gorgeous in the everglades and I was happy to see the water looked about as good as I’ve seen it since hurricane irma, hopefully some more cool weather will keep it that way and our winter time fishing will pick up with more redfish, drum, and sheepshead along with snook.  Anyways I’m open most of this week if anybody wants to go, look me up!

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

Got out with Andy and his stepson Trey again for day 2 of fishing in the florida keys in november.  The winds were howling out of the east 25 mph, but the nice thing about the charter fishing in the keys is we have a lot of protected water in the florida bay.  We can skirt along the edges of the shallow bay flats to keep the waves down and keep everyone fairly dry for the ride.  We did some everglades mangrove island fishing and caught some mangrove snappers.  Not anything huge but we got a half dozen keeper size ones which we kept for the boys for lunch.  Just about every restaurant in town will do a florida keys hook and cook with snapper, and we don’t mind to fillet them for you at the dock.  We also got a nice jack crevelle, and Trey got a sheepshead which was another species on his list of fish.  I think they both ended up catching at least a half dozen species of fish in their 2 days they’d never caught before!  After that we headed back towards channel 2 bridge in islamorada for fishing in the bay.  We hit a little wreck and anchored which was a little tough as it was so windy but finally got the boat to hang.  Once we got to fishing it wasn’t too bad, we caught some more jack crevelles, a couple big ladyfish, and a couple mackerel though both the spanish mackerel cut us off at the boat before we could get any pictures.  After an hour or so of that the guys were wore out and hungry so we headed in a little early on our 3/4 day to clean fish and send them to the restaurant for lunch!  They had a great time doing something different on their second day of fishing here, and Andy said he’d be back next June for some summer time tarpon fishing in the everglades.  I’m not booked tomorrow but have a full day trip Monday, think we are going after snook and the winds are suppse to lay back down tomorrow so hopefully it’ll be good!  I’ll probably try to catch some live pilchards for bait fish tomorrow so I’ll be locked and loaded for Monday.

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

Got out with Andy and his stepson Trey for a 3 quarter day today. Haven’t fished the last few days as I’ve been home alone with my son having fun. They wanted to catch some snook so we gave that a try. Looked for pilchards in a few spots heading out but didn’t see much in the bay, though a buddy of mine found some out on the ocean side and gave us a few scoops. We ended up catching everything on shrimp though anyhow! The boys each got several snook including a couple nice ones, Trey getting the largest. Andy got a 20 lb tarpon on light tackle later on too which was awesome, but unfortunately he didn’t cooperate for pictures. Trey got a black drum and a big jack crevelle too. The water was the best looking I’ve seen it around the cape areas where we often fish which is a good thing, hopefully with some more cold weather fish will pile in there! Back at it tomorrow with these guys not sure what we are gonna do, but it is suppose to blow a little bit!

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

Well had some free time this weekend so tried something I’d been meaning to for a while. Went with my friend Vic and hit some of his bass holes in homestead! Kind of a last minute deal but met him and a few others up there. We fished a few canals and one pond mostly throwing topwaters though tried some worms too. Not a lot of action but Vic got a couple peacocks at the first stop. I had one bite but missed it and a few other followers. The next stop I got a little largemouth bass and so did Vic. After that we tried the other end of this area and found a mix of fish. I got a larger largemouth here, then a cichlid, and finally my peacock! Not a big one but the right one. After that we tried a pond near the overpass where we saw the most fish we had seen. We switched over to weighted worms but never had any bites. The bass were interested but just not wanting to feed it seemed. After that I called it a day and headed home. Fun stuff and was a cool experience, plus got to catch my first homestead peacock bass and cichlid. Think I will try it again some time for sure.

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