5/18/13 Florida Keys Backcountry Fishing in May

Well been very busy and not much time to give updates for the islamorada may fishing report.  The weather has been nice and fishing has been pretty good overall.  The may florida keys tarpon fishing has slowed down a little bit the last several days as much of the mullet have thinned out and it was also a very very busy weekend with lots of boats on the water.  It's been tough to find live bait plus the fish are just not as active though fish are definitely still being caught we've still been catching at least one most every trip, today we lost a fish after a few minutes but got them the last couple nights as well as some a few days ago fishing locally.  The gulf has had some decent fishing we made our way out their yesterday and found lots of big bull sharks, some goliath groupers, a few cobias, and saw some permit though they were tough to get to eat.  Capt. Mike Bassett had good luck fishing the deeper everglades and had a good catch of redfish and snook.  One day they had 11 snook with Bob and son John.  There has also been some nice size mangrove snappers around Capt. Dave Sisung has had some very nice catches of great tablefare as of late.  The tarpon fishing with crabs should pick up and hopefully crabs will become more available as this is the time of year they start feeding more on them.  Early mornings and later evenings can be a good bet for big tarpon in Islamorada!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk