Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Fishing Islamorada

Got out with the Thompson crew some of my regulars down from the Connecticut area.  They’ve always been lucky enough to catch really good fishing it seems the last several years.  It cooled off a bit last night though the water was still fairly warm and lots of muddy areas still though its getting better.  Winds were kicking 15-20 mph out of the north.  We got out to the mackerel grounds early and had good action there.  Plenty of spanish mackerel on shrimp and jigs, as well as some snappers, blue runners, and even a small gag grouper.  After a couple hours of that we headed back towards the cape, not too bad of a run as we were able to go right into the sea and eventually get up near the banks for the rest of it.  The cape was very busy being the weekend which is why I didn’t want to bank on the trip back there.  We were able to sneak into a couple areas and caught a handful of snook, 5 or so, and a small goliath grouper.  Not too bad!  After that we decided to try and catch some big stuff for the last hour.  The sharks were pretty active since the water was still above 70, and we also caught a larger goliath grouper about 75 lbs, and 3 lemon sharks.   All in all a good day for sure, looks like we are getting some rain tomorrow and it’s suppose to be in the 50s the next 3 nights, so glad I am off tomorrow.  Monday/Tuesday I’m available though will likely be taking my dad fishing one of those days…  We may just have the conditions for some epic backcountry fishing for snook/reds/drum…

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

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