February Fishing Picks Up! Sailfish and Big Kings!

Islamorada Fishing was a little tough towards the end of January, but as soon as February rolled around fishing picked up. On the 1st of February the Poor Girls Sailfish Tournament took place. Captain Scott Stanczyk aboard the Catch 22 led Katie, Elizabeth, and Sara to a 2nd place Finish with 5 sailfish releases. The Reel McCoy and Cloud Nine both released 3 sailfish as well. It was a rough day with big seas, but it didn't stop the girls in the Florida Keys from having a good day on the water. Today the fishing was great too. The Relentless, Kalex, and Strictly Business all had limits of kingfish, with some real nice ones up to 40 lbs! The BNM went offshore in the morning to one of the humps and caught a couple of amberjacks up to 45 lbs, as well as a few small tunas and almaco jacks before coming back to the reef and releasing 4 out of 5 sailfish.

"Bodacious" wins Florida Keys Gold Cup Sailfish Championship!

The last two years Nick Stanczyk from the BNM joined up with local friends Taylor Walsh, Topher Wightman, Allen Wood, and Henry and Shay Danzig aboard their boat "Bodacious" to fish the Florida Keys Gold Cup Sailfish Championship. The Gold Cup is made up of 3 of the largest sailfish tournaments in the Upper Keys, and the most releases wins. After winning the Islamorada Sailfish tournament we were off to a good start in the series. The Reel McCoy won the Cheeca Lodge Sailfish tournmanet and closed the gap to only 4 fish with just the IFC captains sailfish cup remaining as the last event. Yesterday the IFC tournament took place, which is a winner take all event, and the Bodacious remained consistent and released 5 more sailfish, finishing 2nd in the IFC tourney on time. Teammates Taylor and Topher were not able to make it for the last day, so Dave Morris filled in for Taylor at the wheel and put us on the fish. The Reel McCoy released 4 sailfish to take 3rd place in the IFC, and 2nd place overall in the Gold Cup Standings. There's a couple of sailfish tournaments for the Ladies remaining in February, but the Gold Cup is over till next Demcember.

The Reel McCoy wins the Cheeca Lodge Presidential Sailfish Tournament!

Last weekend over January 21st and 22nd 2012 the Cheeca Lodge Sailfish tournament took place in Islamorada. The sailfishing had been a little on the slow side over the past couple weeks, but Capt. George went to work on the first day of the tournament and released 6 sails to get into first place. The second day they got off to a great start and released 7 more fish within the first two hours to give them 13 releases for the tournament. The took 1st place with 13 releases and the 2nd and 3rd place boats each had 8 releases. During the past week the king mackerel bite has been the most consistent. Most of the fish have been in the 5 - 10 lb range with a few over 20 lbs. The yellowtail snapper have been biting fair at best with the cooler water temps, but there's also been a few big mutton snapper up to 15 lbs! There was only a few sails caught on Monday and Tuesday between all the boats, but today there was a little better bite. The Relentless had 5 releases and the BNM had 2 releases. The Fearless had a nice catch of king mackerel and snapper as well.

Mid January 2012 Islamorada Reef Fishing Report!

The Sailfish have thinned out the past week. There's been a couple caught each of the last few days, but the boats have been having to put in a lot of time for a couple of shots. The king mackerel bite picked back with many boats limiting out with fish from 5 - 20 lbs. Each day there has also been a few blackfin tuna hanging up, including a few nice ones close to 20 lbs. The yellowtail snapper have been biting decent as well too, with some just legal fish up shallow and some nicer ones out a little deeper on the reef. On the shallow patches there has been lots of nice cero mackerel too. Our grouper season closed on Jan. 1st for the next 4 months and we've been releasing some nice size grouper the last few days.

Islamorada Sailfishing and More January 5/6th on the Reef!

We had a very strong cold front pass through a few days ago and it seems to have definitely have helped our sailfish bite. We've heard of some epic catches a couple hundred miles north the last few days and we are seeing more sailfish each day as well. Yesterday both the Kalex and Catch 22 had 4 sailfish releases, and the BNM, Relentless, and Sugaree both had 2. We found a really nice school of cobia on the BNM and called a couple boats over and a few boats caught some really nice cobia up to 50 lbs! There was also quite a few king mackerel caught the last couple days by the boats that tried. Today on the 6th the Reel McCoy and the Finnster both had 4 sailfish releases, the BNM and Sugaree each had 3 releases, as well as  couple nice blackfin tuna to 20 lbs! The weather has been gorgeous the last couple of days and looks great for the next few too. Get on down here for your Islamorada Fishing Trip! The Key Largo sailfish tournament starts tomorrow so wish our boats luck over the weekend.