12/15/17 Mid December Backcountry Fishing Post Cold Front!

Well we just had a good blast of cold weather here in the Florida Keys.  Things dropped down into the high 50s for several nights.  Though after the front we had a couple days of flat calm gorgeous weather.  This was a recipe for some great backcountry fishing in the everglades!  The snook, redfish, and black drum bite was on fire for sure.  I had several good days this past week.  Pat had a great day with me the day of the front catching snook, redfish, black drum, and a tarpon!  It was blowing 30 in the morning but we ventured out and it was well worth it.  The day after that I had Alec and Zack who were pro soccer players in Atlanta and Alec is the brother in law to my wifes cousin.  They had a great day with a lot of black drum, a few reds, a couple snook, and a few sheepshead.  Also got a couple triple tail on the way home and saw plenty more of them.  Then I had my dad and Stephen for a day of fun fishing, lots of snook and black drum and a couple redfish.  Then just spent the last two days with Pam and Lars.  We had stellar fishing and the best all week.  The big snook showed up and we caught quite a few both days up to 12 lbs.  Lots of smaller snook as well.  Plenty of nice redfish on day one too, and some black drum and Lars and Pam each got a tarpon to complete a backcountry SLAM!  A few reds in the morning on day two, then mostly black drum in the afternoon, with plenty of snook mixed in too and a lot of nice seatrout.  Lars got another tarpon on day two as well.  It was just stellar fishing with the right conditions.  Looks to be on a warming trend over the next week with north/easterly winds, but conditions looks good not too windy and then a couple calm days again on tuesday and wednesday perhaps.  Capt. Mike Bassett had a couple good days with his good customer Lonnie they had nice snook, redfish, and drum in the backcountry.  The day before he had the same plus a tarpon.  Capt. Skip Nielsen had some good reef fishing with some nice kingfish off the edge yesterday.  Patch reef fishing has been pretty good though with the cold the last few days sometimes its been better a little deeper, or wherever you can find cleaner, warmer water usually away from the bridges or bay currents.  Christmas week is coming soon but this next week is usually fairly slow... a good time to get into the backcountry before the crowds come!  Give us a call we can help you set it up.  305-664-2461

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing