Fishing Reports

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

Another fantastic day with Graham and Steve in the Everglades today. Things really warmed up compared to yesterday and the wind was honking in Islamorada out of the southeast. However when we got a few miles into the bay first thing in the morning, it was slick calm. Sometimes this phenomena happens as the bay water is still super cold and it seems to kill the warm gulfstream winds. So made for a nice ride over and great fishing conditions early on. We caught fish in every stop today, some of course better than others. But a couple spots with just about all the snook and redfish you wanted! A few black drum, nice sea trout, and sheepshead mixed in as well. Graham got his PB snook about a 30 incher. We also caught a couple of very large look downs out in the near gulf which was an unexpected surprise! Graham kept one lookdown for a giataku print which he practices for fun, where they roll print the fish on rice paper. Just a great day on the water though, the winds did kick up later in the morning back there but not too bad of a ride home. Looks like tomorrow will be a little nastier and possibly Saturday, though another weaker cold front coming in Sunday to cool things off again. I’ll say it again fishing is just as good as it gets right now in the backcountry. Come on down before the crazy xmas week if you can, or of course January offers some of our best winter time fishing in the Keys. The frequent harsh cold fronts can bring out the large snook, drum, and redfish!

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

reat day fun fishing with my dad Richard Stanczyk Sr. and wife Elizabeth Baxter! We hit the ‘glades early as we had a cold front the last couple of days chill things down again. This often gives us some great opportunity at quality size fish in the backcountry! We had falling tide all day long and were loaded up with shrimp. We fished sevearl areas hard early on, nothing was red hot we had to put our time in, but all of them seemed to hold a handful of fish. We started the day off with a nice big black drum of 20 to 25 lbs! These ‘big nasty’ creatures seem to bite best on some of our coldest days of the year and when the biggest ones come out to play. You can see the mustad fishing chartreuse darter jig in his mouth, these wide gap hooks are perfect when you may have a shot at a larger size fish. After some more hard work, my dad got a couple of real nice size snook on our SpinFisher Vs! We caguht a good handful of nice size trout as well, and then a few smaller snook and drum. We moved around and found a few more drum and snook in a couple different areas. Nothing red hot though again seemed each spot held a handful. We moved to another area and set up and then we got on a decent bite of snook and redfish. We gave it a bit there and then worked our way towards home. We decided to stop and fish an area I hadn’t fished in a long time as we had a negative tide situation. The cold fronts often help push the water out of the bay, and at low tide the flats get exposed really trapping fish in some of the runoffs where it is slightly deeper. We got into the area and then just started bailing redfish! It was awesome to see, nothing huge but just about every cast. We didn’t stay long as I was just testing to see if fish were there, and they were very nice to see. We headed on home after that. Things started to warm back up and the wind was more easterly. Looks like it’ll swing more southeast tomorrow and likely continue to warm up… Then another weaker front on Saturday and chilly for a few nights. It’s definitely winter time here in the Florida Keys, but the fishing is hot!

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