2/8/16 February Backcountry Fishing Report Islamorada

Well the winter weather continues we've just been hit by another hard cold front and had a couple nasty days with 30+mph winds.  Today things got nice but it was a cold morning though beautiful and sunny right now this afternoon.  Things look to stay on the chilly side with lows in the mid 50s through until the weekend.  Fishing has been pretty good still overall however.  Capt. Mike Venezia has had some decent action in the everglades with drums and snooks.  It hasn't been the red hot bite that we had on the right days in January, but more of a pick of fish and sometimes you get in a good spot that may hold several.  Though still lots of fun and Capt. Mike has been adventuring into some very creeks that not many have travelled into!  He also had a good day a week ago fishing the patches catching some dinner and they caught some nice blacktips plus a bonefish to start it off in the morning.  Capt. Jim Willcox has been plugging away deep in the everglades at redfish and snook.  Though some of the deeper areas have not been consistent as there has been some nasty water so you really have to work at it some days to find fish.  I went out with Capt. Bill Basset Saturday and it was not easy fishing either we caught a few nice reds and it was hard work.  Though that was the day of the swamp guides ball and many reported that fishing was not easy.  Though Capt. Bill reported a nice day this morning fishing the patches and catching plenty for dinner snappers, porgies, etc... as did Capt. Chris Daly.  Capt. Vic Gaspeny had a mix of snappers and got a couple keeper hogfish this morning too.  I myself last week had some good action in the gulf we caught plenty of mackerels on several different days.  Capt. Mike Bassett also had some good mackerel days alongside me.  There were also some jumbo mangrove snappers on one wreck we were catching on pinfish, nice 15-18 inch fish real drag pullers!  We had great triple tail fishing too, not a lot of large ones but lots of them and caught probably 10 or more each day we went.  One day we also caught two nice size goliath groupers up to 150 lbs, and a big old tiger shark that was over 300 lbs!  It was pretty incredible on the lighter spinning rods we use for smaller 30-80 lb tarpon.  I myself am going out of town for a week or so but as I said we look to stay in the winter mode for another week or so.  Tarpon fishing will probably have to wait until it gets consistently warm which may not happen for a few more weeks we will see, but there are plenty of other things to do as you can see.  Give us a call if you are in the area fishing is plenty good and there are lots of things to catch!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk