4-8-13 Offshore Fishing Islamorada

Fishing in Islamorada has been pretty good the first week of April. Not every day has been a home run, but we’ve had action every trip and there’s been some good quality fish around. Today we had a very slow start to the day, and finally boated our first fish at 11:30! It was a nice 50 lb amberjack, followed by a 30 lber. After that we looked for some mahi, and after 20 minutes came across a school, but they didn’t want to bite very well. We caught a couple, and but just one keeper. It was just enough to feed our couple though, so they were happy! We decided to head back to the reef edge after that and right when we got in a saw a pack of sailfish swimming down sea. We struggle with live bait this morning, but did have a few left over from the day before. We managed two bites from the pack and caught and released one of them. After that a fellow fisherman gave us a few left over baits that they had. Next we tried for some permit and released 3 in all, with a pair of them around 30 lbs! We weren’t done yet though. We also hooked a double header sailfish and released both of them too! It wound up being a great day of Islamorada Fishing! Yesterday we started out by catching some nice vermillion snapper, and then did some trolling. We caught a pair of mahi, and one was a nice 20 lb bull. On the way home we stopped at a spot and sure enough saw some permit. Within 2 minutes we were hooked up! After a 20 minute battle on 15 lb test, Long time Bud n’ Mary’s Marina customer Tom, landed and released his biggest permit ever! A big 31 lber! The days before that we released some sharks, including this nice hammerhead, we caught some king mackerel, barracuda, and plenty of snapper. The sails have been a little tough the past month, but you never know when it’s going to be your day! So when your ready to get out fishing shoot me an email!

Capt. Nick Stanczyk

bnmcharters@gmail.com

4/6/13 Islamorada hogfish fishing on the patch reefs!

Well today we had a breezy north 15 mph wind in Islamorada, Florida Keys.  This seemed to have slowed the tarpon down for a day or so hopefully tomorrow it will pick back up.  I had anglers from the other day that had already caught some big tarpon in islamorada so we decided to mix it up and do something different.  We fished the patch reefs which are often good when it is cold and with northerly winds as it stays calmer out there.  We hit some rocks fishing jigs and shrimp.  The islamorada hogfish fishing was good we caught about half a dozen fish off one spot, with 5 of them being keepers!  We also caught some porgies, yellowtails, mangrove snappers, and a couple small groupers.  Though lots of fun on light tackle regardless with the groupers!  One trick to the florida keys hogfish fishing is chumming with bits of shrimp, this really can get them going and to find you out there.  Tomorrow it’s back to tarpon fishing in the morning, hopefully the warmer incoming tide early in the morning will have the fish happier – we shall see!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
305-747-6903
rick@fishingislamorada.com

April hogfish islamorada

April hogfish islamorada

4/4/13 Great april tarpon fishing in Islamorada

The april islamorada tarpon fishing was excellent today!  Incoming tide in the backcountry and this evening around the local bridges.  We caught plenty of live mullet first thing.  The day bites came on bottom rigged baits, we caught 4/4 before 10:00 am.  After that my anglers had enough, and we finished up catching trout, ladyfish, and some mangrove snappers for dinner.  Always good options on a backcountry fishing charter in islamorada.  This evening we had bait left over and fished the local bridges where we had some tarpon action the night before.  We weren’t able to land any the night before but had 2 solid bites and 1 miss a mullet.  Tonight was different we landed 4 out of 9 solid strikes which was great fishing.  Most the bites came on life mullet on the top, very exciting to watch the fish blow up a live mullet on top, just as fun as catching them!  If your looking to go on an islamorada fishing charter give us a call.  A total of 8 out of 13 tarpon today is very good fishing!  Islamorada tarpon fishing.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
305-747-6903
rick@fishingislamorada.com

4-1-13 Deep Sea Fishing in Islamorada

I have been slammed the past couple of weeks so my Islamorada Fishing Report is a little late. I’ll start with today and give you a basic run down of what we’ve been catching overall the past couple of weeks while offshore fishing islamorada. Today we went “offshore” and caught and released a big tiger shark about 500 lbs, and also had a few tilefish, porgy, a snowy grouper, a couple almaco jacks, a few vermillion snapper, and a 55 lb amberjack. On the Reef lately the king mackerel bite has been pretty good, although there was a few slower days mixed in. Yesterday we had our limit of king mackerel to 24 lbs. We also had a pair of cobia at 24 and 40 lbs. The cobia bite has been fair lately, it’s definitely a hunting game and you have to put your time in looking, we don’t catch them every day, but it does pay off to look inside the reef, in the shallow waters for a little while every day. The snapper bite has been pretty good lately too, lots of nice lane snappers and quite a few yellowtail snapper most days. We also caught a nice 27 lb african pomano last week as well as a 275 lb goliath grouper which we released. We will start heading offshore further in search of mahi soon, as well as blackfin tuna, but most of our days have still be spent on the reef lately. I also saw some permit yesterday near a wreck, so we should start catching a few of those as they live on some of the wrecks in the Spring. Send me an email if you’re looking to do an islamorada fishing charter and I’ll try to help you out!

Capt. Nick Stanczyk

bnmcharters@gmail.com

3/29/13 Islamorada backcountry fishing report

We’ve been extremely busy here in Islamorada, Florida Keys.  One of the busiest spring times I can remember!  Unfortunately this last week we had another late cold front dropping the temperatures extremely low.  Some parts of the everglades national park the water was in the high 50s, and even florida bay was in the low 60s – not ideal for this time of year or any time!  The hot ticket for my anglers has been fishing the islamorada patch reefs.  The last several days we’ve done that and the fishing has been pretty good.  Lots of good eating fish too!  We’ve caught some nice mangrove snappers, porgies, and hogfish which are all delicious!  There has also been a mix of smaller yellowtails, mutton snappers, various groupers, blue runners, grunts, chubs, and even a few small sharks.  A few days ago one of my anglers was after sharks, but with the water temperatures being what they were I did not think much of our chances.  However we fished near the ocean side with the incoming tide from the atlantic and that kept things quite a bit warmer than in the bayside.  We didn’t catch anything we consider ‘trophies’ here, but he was thrilled to catch a few very large nurse sharks, big sting rays, and large bonnet head sharks.    The april tarpon fishing in islamorada should pick up too.  The last several nights have obviously been pretty slow with the cold water.  We saw plenty of fish last night, though never could get one to eat.  I fished 3 different spots and all held fish that we could see rolling consistently.  The cold front has since passed and the waters should have a chance to warm up, once they reach ~70 again everything should get better slowly.  If your thinking of doing a backcountry islamorada fishing charter give me a call!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
305-747-6903
rick@fishingislamorada.com