Backcountry Fishing Reports

Had a good day today it slicked off and was flat calm all day long!  At least the water is still cool so it didn’t feel too hot.  We pounded the spanish mackerel this morning, must’ve caught 30 or so in about 1.5 hours!  It was just about every cast…  After that we looked for tripletails for a little bit, but didn’t see any and decided to head inshore to fish for some bigger stuff.  We checked out a couple channels looking for possible tarpon as I had heard there were a few around the day before.  We didn’t see much but once I set up on the trolling motor to anchor us in place, we started marking a few on the bottom machine.  After about 30 minutes we saw one roll and that confirmed it – tarpon were here!  We caught two decent sized sawfish off the bottom, up to about 200 lbs each.  We caught several lemon sharks up to about 100 lbs, and a few smaller blacktip sharks.  After moving around and getting in front of some rolling tarpon, we got our tarpon bite and landed a nice 75 lb fish.  It was a great spring-like day for the end of january!  We tried an area for some trout afterwards, but all we found was catfish!  The water out on the edge of the gulf looked much better then the previous couple days after that hard 45 mph blow we had early in the week.  Back at it tomorrow.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Joe and his dad today and we went and hit the gulf early.  It was a little breezy out of the south on the ride out, but about 2 miles from the spot the wind suddenly laid off to nothing making for a nice morning!  We had good mackerel action right off the bat and we caught plenty of them for the next couple hours.  We also got a few blue runners, ladyfish, and other various things.  We had a live blue runner out there for a little bit on wire line, and something crashed him hard but unfortunately cut us off way above the swivel.  Later on we tried another wreck further out but the water was much muddier out there.  Even though it was flat calm and should’ve been nice water, it was still very stirred up from the tremendous wind we had a few days ago.  We caught a few more mackerels and jacks there, but no cobias or anything like that.  We ran to the cape to try some areas for snook and redfish.  The tide was coming in there and carrying the muddy water with it… we tried 4 spots and only had a couple bites in one, but unfortunately we pulled a couple snook off and that was it.  I saw a few guys I know and they said the fishing was a little better early on first thing in the morning, but had shut off for them at that point too.  We saw plenty of small tarpon crashing finger mullets, and tried to mess with them but no luck.  We decided to put the big rods out off the beach and caught several lemon sharks up to 120 lbs.  We also landed a nice tripletail of 5 lbs or so, kept him for dinner!  Lastly we had something but pull us around for about 10 minutes but then swam into some rocks/structure which I had never seen before… but anyways I marked it so maybe I found myself a new hole!  All in all not too bad of a day, out again tomorrow it looks like it’ll still be nice.  Suppose to cool off this weekend, but now the wind forecast is much less, so maybe it’ll get cold and not blow crazy and the everglades fishing will turn back on!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out this morning it was a gorgeous day on the water with the Konovsky’s down from Chicago.  Monday we had that crazy front hit us and it was blowing 40+mph for most of the day!  About as windy as it gets aside from a major tropical depression or something.  Anyways much of the bay and even oceanside patches have been turned to mud, so we ran further west as its more open water and I figured it’d be a better bet for fishing.  A few guys that fished yesterday said they had struggled in the mud too…  Anyways it was a great ride, flat calm and a little chilly since it cooled off but not too bad.  The action was hot and heavy from the start we had plenty of mackerels, blue runners, a few bluefish, a few ladyfish, and a mix of snappers as well!  Kept a couple snappers for dinner.  We even caught a few mackerel on the fly too.  I normally don’t do much serious fly fishing but this is one type of fishery that it’s easy to do when they are biting.  Anyways a couple hours went by fairly quick and we headed back home.  The next couple of days I am fishing full days but have some dates open next week.  Looks like the weather is going to stay on the cooler side as we have another mild front coming in Friday night, which should keep the backcountry/gulf fishing good.  Hopefully the backcountry water will clear up a bit the next few days if it stays this calm.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Whew today it was a windy one blowing 20-25 out of the southwest!  We were able to get out though and do some fishing.  The ride out wasn’t terrible we were able to scoot across shallow water for a good part of it without getting too beat up or wet, and eventually tacked down sea out into the near gulf.  Once anchored it wasn’t really bad and we had pretty good fishing.  We caught about 2 dozen mackerels, and a handful of blue runners, yellowtails, and a red grouper.  Definitely worth the run out there!  Going home it was a bit more difficult as we had a bad angle with the wind, so we had to zig and zag a lot and took a bit more spray than I like but at least it wasn’t cold!  Once we got to shallow water again it wasn’t bad the rest of the way, but that’s the price of admission on days like today.  The nice thing about fishing in the Florida Keys backcountry is you can just about always get out no matter what the weather is doing and get it done.  Taking tomorrow off and then tuesday I am open, it is suppose to get nicer tuesday and I hope we are gonna have a great end of the week with the weather cooling off monday and tuesday night.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Today the wind kicked up a little bit again it wasn’t flat calm like yesterday.  But not too bad a light southerly breeze most of the day that did kick up a little more to 10 -15 mph by the end of the day.  We hit the gulf again and had good fishing.  The first stop we didn’t find the cobias on the wreck where they were yesterday, but we had plenty of action with jacks, snappers, and a couple mackerel.  We ran to another spot after about 45 minutes to try and the mackerel were swarming there we probably caught 20 or so in about an hour.  After that we ran another 10 miles out into the gulf to try a deeper wreck.  We didn’t see many triple tail on the way out, none as a matter of fact.  The wreck had some big goliaths on it, we caught 3 up to 150 lbs which was cool!  But not much else for other fish there either.  We ran back towards the mainland and did catch one triple tail on the way in, a little guy off of a crab pot buoy.  We tried a piece of structure for more cobia on the way but no luck there.  Finally the last stop of the day the water looked pretty and green and we hooked some big critters right away but we had a couple break us off twice in a row.  I threw a pinfish out and we hooked up instantly to a cobia!  After that we ended up catching another one, and had a third one on for a while that was a nice fish (keeper size) but unfortunately when we got him to the landing net on the leader, he broke off before we could get him in the net!  Anyways it was a fun fight and a technical release since we had the leader, though that doesn’t make people feel much better that are wanting to throw him in the ice box!  Anyways after that we were out of pinfish but we caught some big sharks, a couple big bull sharks one of 150 lbs, and the other likely 250 lbs a real monster!  It was a great way to finish up another fabulous fishing day in Islamorada, Florida.  Looks like the winds are gonna kick up to 20-25 mph tomorrow, and then swing around west to north as another cold front hits us on Monday.  I have a half day in the morning hopefully we can get it done and then not much until mid-week which is just as well I think Monday and possibly Tuesday may not be great for fishing… But you never know sometimes the forecasters are wrong!   Gimme a shout if you are looking to get out I’ll shoot you straight.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk