Backcountry Fishing Reports

Today the winds swung back to the east/southeast, it wasn’t blowing too hard either but still 10-15 mph.  We caught the mackerels well in the morning it was action just about every cast.  I had 3 anglers and this was a good option for them.  We kept a few for bait and some for the table as well.  After that we tried to see if their were some big critters in the channels where they were a few days ago before the last front.  We sat for about 40 minutes with our cut bait out, but alas never even had a sniff on them.  I didn’t see any tarpon roll or anything either, so we went to another area further back.  Here the fishing was much better and I noticed the water temperature was also 73 degrees instead of 70 like the previous spot.  We ended up catching a couple goliath groupers, a couple big sawfish (only saw the bill of 1 before he cut us off), and a big lemon shark.  It was good action and some big fish!  After that we caught some snappers for dinner on our shrimp leftovers, couldn’t find any monster snappers to eat our cut bait, but we did get a few keepers for the table.  Tomorrow I have the day off so far, will be nice!  Next week it’s getting busy again.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with my same guys from yesterday Howard and Mike.  Today was a different day it was blowing 20-25mph out of the north as a minor cold front hit us last night.  The temperatures didn’t really drop much at all though it was a little chilly but not cold.  I will say though the tides were the lowest I’d ever seen in the backcountry!  With the north wind blowing hard it blows the water out of the bay, but we also had a full moon, and winter time tides in general are often lower than usual.. so it was a trifecta of low water conditions!  I almost got stuck getting into the canal where you normally rarely have to even pay attention to getting in.  We made it though thankfully but did see a couple other boats that had some trouble.  Fishing wasn’t too bad we actually did OK considering the conditions – extra muddy water due to the wind, and that mid range water temperature that is in between normal winter time and normal summer time.  We had some nice live pilchards we caught around town before we left, and caught about a half dozen snook.  We probably lost another half dozen unfortunately but that is fishing, but it was good to have some action anyways.  We left there with about an hour of fishing time to spare to hit a few mangrove snapper spots on the way home for dinner.  We were able to catch some real nice mangrove snappers on the pilchards, several in the 2 to 3 lb range, and even got a snook doing that too!  Anyways it was a fun day and nice for my anglers to do something entirely different from yesterday as only the Keys can offer.  Hopefully the boys will be back to fish again soon.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Did a pretty similar routine as yesterday we had some prefrontal conditions with a light southwesterly breeze.  The mackerels bit well much better than yesterday.  We caught a bunch in about an hour.  After that we caught the start of the incoming tide in the channels where the tarpon were yesterday.  They were still there and we caught a few big blacktip sharks, a couple big mud marlin (sawfish), and then got hooked up with two large tarpon (120 + 150 lb)!  Both tarpons stayed on though only one cooperated for the boat side picture.  It was good fishing to say the least!  After that we tried some snook areas again like yesterday, but with the onshore wind the shore was pretty muddy and we didn’t have any luck with that.  Though we did catch a couple big jacks at least on the pilchards!  Tonight it’ll get a little chilly so probably will slow the tarpon down for a few days at least and tomorrow is gonna be blowing 20 mph, so may mix it up.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Great day again today I had Dan who fished with me last week and his buddies Dave and Mike.  It was glass calm and a gorgeous day.  We found a bunch of pilchards as we were pulling out of the dock and blacked the well out… great way to start!  We hit the gulf and caught the mackerels and snappers pretty well.  It wasn’t super red hot and took a bit of work, but caught probably 16 or 18 macks and some snappers.  The tide was weak, with clear water and flat calm conditions, can make the mackerels a little tricky.  After that we hit the channels to chunk up some dead bait and fish the big rods.  We found some tarpon and other big critters.  We caught a few sharks and a tarpon right off the bat, a nice 80 lb fish!  After that we caught a big ‘mud marlin’ sawfish, and had a couple others break us off under the boat.  Then we caught some more sharks, tried moving around to get back on the tarpon but they were being finicky at this point.  But was very glad to get one!  We then hit the shorelines of the mainland to try for a few snook to end the day.  The first stop was not very good but we did catch a nice jumbo trout.  The second stop however we caught about 5 nice snook and lost a couple others.  It was a great way to end the day and yes it’s very nice when everything you try to do on a fishing trip ends up working out!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Steve and Jim again today.  We focused on our light rod action fishing again and got some good dinner.  Plenty of mackerels early, and a few decent snappers off some gulf wreck structure as well.  Chopped pinfish chunks did the trick for the bigger snappers.  After that we looked for triple tails, but we didn’t see much only 1 tiny one.  We went inshore after that and caught a few trout and a nice pompano for Jim for dinner later.  After that we hit the mangrove islands to finish our limit of snappers, we got a few nice ones out of the trees on cut bait as well.  Plenty of action!  Tomorrow I may try for some tarpon, heard there had been a few around the last couple days and the temperatures are in that bottom realm of catch possibility.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk