12/18/11 Fishing the everglades and east cape.

Had John and his girlfriend over from across the pond (Australia!) today for a full day florida keys backcountry fishing trip!  We left out early at 7 am, stiff north-northeast breeze about 15mph, not too bad but a little chilly.  We headed back to the east cape area where fish have been stacking up in many of the canals and ditches.  First stop we fished a canal mouth, jigging shrimp and pinfish on the bottom.  Tide was still trickling in.  First fish of the day was a nice snook on one of the pins!  Also caught a few small reds and mix of crevalle jacks.  Moved a little further in to a run-off, tide switched and got the reds going pretty good there.  Caught probably 15, also a couple of nice sheeps head!  Headed a little further west to east cape canal and hit a few run-off creeks inside there.  One held some more decent redfish, and caught a couple nice black drum, along with a few more big sheepshead!  Bounced around since the bugs were bad (no-seeums!).  Did not do much else, ran to lake ingrham and caught a couple little reds there, stopped and ate lunch.  Headed back towards home, stopped for some islamorada flats fishing near one of the islands.  Drifted and poled one of the edges and found a school of little redfish, caught one.  Also blew out a snook.  For the end of the day tried mackerel fishing in the bay again, though the tide was hard into the wind, not ideal!  Caught a handful of blue runners and mangrove snappers, and then headed back home.  Christmas week is almost here so book your fishing trips today, soon we will be islamorada fishing in january!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
rick@seethefloridakeys.net
305-747-6903