2/25/16 Late February Islamorada Backcountry Fishing Report

February is nearing an end and we have more cold weather on the way this evening!  Amazingly lows will be in the low 50s again the next couple nights.  This will put the tarpon off for a while longer, they never really got going much this February as it was consistently cold throughout most of the month and just now when temperatures had gotten to that bottom level of 75 degrees for it to be possible, another cold front to slow it down.  Luckily there has been some other things going on.  I myself had fished out in the gulf mostly the last week.  We had good action with the mackerels, a few days it was just about every cast so I would call it red hot action.  Some nice size mangrove snappers out there too in the holes and any kind of structure, drifting cut bait worked well for nice 15+ inchers.  Further out the tripletail were plentiful, not a lot of big fish unless you got way up off the mainland, but in the usual areas we fish there were plenty to cast to and you could pick a keeper here and there.  Last week we also got a nice permit one day on the patch reefs which was the highlight of the week for me.  Today fishing was slow in the backcountry we had 25 mph northwest winds with the impending cold front, after blowing hard south yesterday so it was what we call a 'mudhole' back there.  We didn't find much around cape sable, nor in many of the trout cuts we usually fish, but were able to catch our limit of mangrove snappers to get some dinner for the table at least.  Capt. Bill Bassett last week reported a few good days of mackerel fishing as well, he also ran deep into the glades on a few trips and was fairly productive most days.  He said you had to fish hard and keep moving but was able to produce some redfish, drum, sheepshead, and a few snook.  Capt. Vinnie Biondoletti had some good trout action in the local bays the last week they also caught a nice goliath grouper fishing the big rods in the local channels.  Capt. Dave Peck reported good mackerel fishing close to home in the bays along with a few sharks, and some snapper and grouper in the channels.  Overall it's that transitional time of year so nothing has been super consistent, really the best bet has been the gulf/mackerel fishing.  With the temperature drop again hopefully the deeper canals and runoffs in the everglades will give us some good fishing over the weekend, as well as the patch reefs.  In March as long as things continue to warm up the tarpon should start showing up, one flat calm day is all it may take to really radiate the water and have the silver king showing up in droves!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk