12/7/17 December Backcountry Fishing in Islamorada

December is cruising right along and so far it's still been unseasonably warm.  That means we've had a little bit of everything going on as far as the species count go.  But looks like this weekend winter is coming.  It's suppose to get down into the mid 50s saturday night, stay there as another reinforcing front comes in tuesday night to keep it there.  Brrrr!  This should be a good thing overall for our fishery, I'm sure both the sailfish offshore as well as drum, mackerel, and other winter time specimens in the backcountry will be ready for it.  While Saturday may be a bust for fishing (suppose to rain, and be blowing hard from south to northwest as the front comes in), sunday should be all good for fishing.  While still windy and cold, it's suppose to be due north wind and the rain should dry up.  This could be a recipe for 'banner day' type fishing in the everglades and I'm sure this coming week will produce some good days.  As for the last week, I've gotten out a few days thankfully.  Fishing has been pretty good too!  Last sunday we had a great half day of fishing, getting in on some nice mangrove snappers for dinner and finding a good school of redfish and snook in the backcountry.  It was a surprising find but great to see, as many of you know the redfish have been harder to come by when it's not very cold in recent years.  We caught about a dozen reds, and one nice snook.  Since then the tides have been higher in that area, but the last couple days we caught plenty of snook back there, and also got our limit of jumbo mangroves the last two days.  We had great fishing in the gulf on our full day a couple days ago in the afternoon too, with plenty of size large spanish mackerel, blue runners, big ladyfish, and a few lane snappers too.  Capt. Sid Bryant has reported some good spanish mackerel fishing as well in the near gulf.  Capt. Skip Nielsen did as well, and he also got some nice snook around cape sable the last few days.  His anglers were also rewarded with a surprise permit yesterday on a very nice afternoon as the weather slicked out.  Capt. John Johansen has been fishing local and had good mangrove snapper action on the patch reefs.  Capt. Bill Bassett caught some spanish mackerel and jack crevelles close by on an afternoon half day trip today.  Capt. Jim Willcox had some snook several days ago in the backcountry, and has been picking away at the bonefish on the local islamoada flats.  Speaking of bonefish, Capt. Richard Stanczyk Sr. has had some phenomenal afternoon fishing for them.  He along with Capt. Vic Gaspeny had a couple nights where they landed 11 total bones, and sevearl nice size fish in the 6 lb range too!  All in all fishing has been pretty good as you can see, though as stated things are gonna get shaken up a little with the cold weather incoming.  But definitely as things settle back down and the winds calm some, we should have some very good fishing.  Give the marina a call if you are looking to get out fishing, we have guides ready to go!  305-664-2461

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