Backcountry Fishing Reports

Got out with pops and our good friend Ricky Walker visiting over from England.  Capt. Stephen also tagged along.  We had a tremendous tropical system blow through last weekend and sunday was 30+ mph winds most of the day.  I hadn’t been in the backcountry in a bit but I figured that may have stirred things up a good bit and didn’t know what to expect.  However one thing in our favor was a light northerly breeze which in the past has often yielded good fishing for the larger snook we like to target.  Something about that cool air in the summer time maybe?  Anyways we got in the backcountry and with the last of the falling tide the water looked more or less like a mudhole about everywhere we went!  We drove around and couldn’t decide where to stop first so we just took a gamble.  Sure enough the first spot not much happened and as we pulled the trolling motor and drifted away, dad hooked a nice fish!  A good size snook not a super monster but respectable none the less probably a good 12 lber or so.  After that we kept moving and didn’t find much with the last of falling tide on the next four or so spots we hit.  Once the tide turned we tried a few others and one area where I’d been finding a few the last few times back there produced a monstrous bite.  Ricky hooked it but unfortunately we had it all the way to the leader after a good 3 minute battle and pulled the hook!  Never saw it but I’m sure it was a monster snook could’ve been in the 25 lb range easily.  One of those ones where you think it may be a shark because you just can’t stop them.  Bummer!  We shook it off and kept moving.  Next stop same thing not much and we drifted off and boom we hooked another big fish.  This time Ricky had some redemption and landed himself another good size fish in the 12 lb range.  We decided to give it a bit longer since I had marked some fish on my bottom machine and low and behold pops hooks something else that screams off some line.  He thinks its a shark so he passes the rod to Stephen, but I’m not convinced to Steve fights it carefully but firmly.  It races around to the bow and then just starts dumping line like it can’t be stopped…. hmm must be a shark right?  Well we finally turn it and then Steve cranks like a mad man as it comes towards the boat and we get a glimpse of it.  Looks like a friggin’ sub marine of a snook!  Holy cow!  We get the bear claw net and swoop her in and wow another monster fish that is in the 20-25 lb range!  Incredible!  After that we make one last move to our last area and the water actually looks great in here.  Surprising as the tide is just quitting here now and that bottom of the falling water is usually dirtiest but it looks good.  We get a nice juvenile goliath on our first stop.  Then next stop we don’t have too much happen but I mark a school of fish a little ways away from where we are fishing.  We troll over and I say cast ahead about a boat length and pops hooks up to a drag screamer!  She zips around back and forth and wow its acting like another really big snook and sure enough that is just what it is.  So banner day we landed 2 monstrous snook and 2 other really good size snook and lost one more monster.  As many of you know we often go fish all day just for a shot at one good size snook in the 35-40 inch range here these days.  But when you get the conditions sometimes you get several.  Today was our day!

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

Well April has almost come & gone!  I’ve been fishing a bit more however it’s been primarily tarpon fishing at the bridges most every day.  That’s all I’m going to be doing from here on out for the most part in April, May, and some in June.  March may be a little bit of early season tarpon in the backcountry.  But fishing has been fair for the bridge tarpon we’ve had a handful of really good days and a lot of days of having to work hard for a handful of bites.  I did do a couple different things this week that I’ll share.  A couple days ago I had my very good client and friend Bill out.  We caught 4 tarpon on Monday and he takes good care of me so I gave him the option of running deep into the Gulf to check out some permit fishing.  He was happy to do it.  We ran a long way to a wreck and found quite a few good schools of spawning permit.  Sight fishing them is very cool you see groups of 50-100 fish and they like to float on the surface sometimes even sticking their heads out of the water.  Pitch a crab into them and WHAM!  We hooked half a dozen or so in the morning but many of them got eaten by sharks and a few we broke off.  We did manage to get one to the boat though so Bill was stoked about that and he had an excellent time just seeing something special like that and being able to hook up to those fish is fun in itself even if you don’t land them.  Yesterday I had my dad out for our weekly fishing trip and we checked out some big snook spots in the backcountry which we haven’t really done much of this month.  Not a whole lot to write home about but we did manage one good size fish around 16 lbs or so and we did find a load of nice tripletail and got two in the 18-20 inch range which were fun to catch.

My other crew of captains has been very busy too but coming up in May they have some availability.  Capt. Stephen who is running my boat has been having a good time with clients.  He’s available on Fridays and Saturdays, and will be taking night trips in May on occasion too for tarpon.  Capt. Trentin on the skiff is available for morning or afternoon half days or full day trips and he’s been doing really well too with local tarpon, snook, and has become very good at catching big mangrove snappers.  Capt. Brandon  is mostly booked for the month of May but he’s been killing it out there too.

Give me a shout to get out on the water!

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

Got out with my dad and our buddy Ed for a quick sunday morning half day trip.  Had to be back in early as I had to watch my boys in the afternoon so we just left the dock at 6 and were back in by 11.  We had another late season ‘cool’ front approaching and it was almost slick calm with just a light northerly breeze early on.  As the morning went on it actually got slightly colder and the sun never seemed to really want to come out.  Definitely one of those prefrontal days.  But the fish were happy as they often are on days like that.  We managed 3 jumbo snooks and had one other bite we missed!  Snook of this caliber you are lucky to catch one fishing all day long often times, and many times it’s all or nothing you have to put the time in to get that one bite.  So getting three was a thrill!  Jigging large size pinfish did the trick for these large everglades snook.  We’ve been getting a few more in recent weeks so that’s a good sign hopefully we’ll have an awesome summer for them.  Of course there were plenty of tarpon splashing around out there too we didn’t really mess with them.  But this time of year it’s definitely possible to do some tarpon fishing and still have time to try for a trophy snook such as this.

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

I had my regular customer Paul out with a couple of his buddies.  We had a late cold front come through and the winds were cranking pretty good and it chilled down not super cold but in the high 60s in the evening.  I wasn’t quite sure what we’d found in the backcountry and was a little worried not much would be happening.  But I checked the water temperatures in the bay on the data buoys and it was chilly in the high 60s as well.  But I knew we were going to be fishing in the near gulf which is deeper and often warmer water.  I remembered a similar condition several years ago and the tarpon didn’t seem to mind much as it wasn’t super early in the season and they had been staged up there for a month ago… pretty much exact same setup as this.  So we gave it a go and boy was it the right choice!  Early on wasn’t too bad the wind was northeast and we were a little protected from the swells.  We got a tarpon bite with the first bait out that we missed.  Caught several sharks and we hopped around, hooking four more tarpon all of which we got leader on and a couple boatside but we didn’t bother going for pictures as the sharks we knew were bad.  One got eaten on us unfortunately after we had broke the line on it.  But great fishing none the less and I did get a few good video clips for the guys you can see here.  I have a couple open days later this month still and a handful in April, and a few more in May still.  Doing my seasonal rate still but again I’m only fishing 3 days a week and can often move your day around if conditions don’t look great (on this day the boys still opted to go as that was there day to fish) and I also get good video footage most of the time and you’ll get copies of professionally edited video clips such as this, and possibly even a full video that makes the Bud n’ Mary’s YouTube channel!  Give me a shout if you want to go, even if it’s not with me I also of course have my couple other captains running vessels that do a great job.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

: @richardstanczyk
: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
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