1/3/18 January Backcountry Fishing Report

Hope everyone had a safe and happy new year!  2018 is officially under way and we had a very busy christmas week here in Islamorada thankfully.   Many guides were happy to be busy once again as overall it's been very slow for many of us the last couple months.  The weather was incredible for the most part after christmas, with it being fairly warm to start with and then a mild front coming in.  Though now we have a couple major fronts coming in and temperatures will be dipping into the high 40s the next several nights in Islamorada!  Over xmas week we had some tarpon action on some of those warmer days.  Myself, Capt. John Johansen, and Capt. Skip Nielsen all had tarpon action on our trips.  It wasn't a red hot bite by any means, but if you put some time in you could get a shot or two, and there were plenty of sharks to keep busy while waiting or if you didn't get one.  The mackerel fishing out in the gulf had been very good as well and about as sure a bet as there was.  I also had some good triple tail fishing on several days when things were a little calmer.  I had George and his son Chris down who are BNM regulars, and we mixed it up with a nice snook and black drum for George, then plenty of triple tails for Chris, and capped it off with a bunch of spanish mackerel.  Also a very similar day with Marc and his son Adam the day before that.  Capt. Mike Bassett and Capt. Jim Willcox had some good mackerel fishing out there over the break.  The patch reef fishing has been good too, Capt. Max Gaspeny had a rare african pompano he caught on the patches last Saturday.  Capt. Skip Nielsen had good patch fishing today with the Kubert family.  Capt. Bill Bassett reported good action fishing in his canoe in the deep everglades with snook and tarpon before this front.  I myself had Vince and his family down fishing for two different days.  Day 1 we caught some very nice mangrove snappers in the 12 to 15 inch range, as well as a nice juvenile goliath grouper and snook.  Day 2 was a lot of black drum, a redfish, and more snook as well.  Vinces son Lucas on Day 2 really put on a clinic catching the first several fish of the day before the guys could catch up!  With this cold weather coming it'll really change the bite up, expect the tarpon thing to really be over for a while... though that is to be expected this time of year anyways.  The drum, redfish, and snook fishing should fire up though tough to say when that will be.  This is such an extreme drop in temperature it could get very slow until things slightly warm up again... but you never know until you get out there.  I should have some reports as I'm fishing tomorrow and Saturday and will likely be back there.  Hope everybody stays warm and get on down here and go fishing, it's gotta be colder in a lot of other places I know that!

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