Mid April Islamorada Backcountry Fishing Report

It's been extremely busy here fishing in the florida keys backcountry!  We had some of our regulars over from the U.K. lead by Dave Lewis.  They've come the last several years around this time and book up most the entire hotel at the marina and several backcountry guides and offshore charters.  Early in the week we had some wind issues, we are normally heavy into the tarpon fishing but things got pretty tough.  The first 3 days we had 20-30 mph winds and the tarpon in the backcountry have not been very good during the day anyhow.  We were able to switch things up though as is one of the great things about fishing in islamorada.  Everyone did something different and we focused on sharks including plenty of blacktips and big lemons.  Most guys also caught some big mud marlin in the 200-400 lb range.  Capt. Ed Cale had several catches of nice sharks, mud marlin, and some nice redfish sight fishing.  There were plenty of redfish to be had and some nice snook as well.  Capt. Rick Stanczyk had a day with 10 snook and another with 6, including some nice fish in the 8 lb range.  Capt. Jim Willcox and Capt. Bill Bassett range deep into the glades 40 miles or so fishing around some of the mainland areas and had some decent size reds back there as well.  There were also plenty of trout, ladyfish, snappers, jacks, and the like.  The last few days the islamorada tarpon fishing action got a bit better, Capt. Skip Nielsen caught 5 with the boys in two days, also getting a backcountry slam of redfish snook and tarpon, Capt. Rick also left early the last day and caught 2 before daybreak.  The guys have already booked the entire marina accommodations for next year with a large group of 12!