10/3/18 October Backcountry Fishin' Report

Well September has come to an end and we are into October.  It officially feels like Fall - we've started to get some harder northeasterly winds, which have cooled things down slightly in the mornings.  Also lots of bird life showing up back there.  The 'fall bait run' has slightly started it's not really in full effect, but definitely some schools of pilchards, black mullets, and what not showing up in many areas.  I've heard further up the coasts there is a much stronger bait run which hopefully will make it's way down here shortly.  September was some absolutely fantastic fishing.  I had one of the best tarpon months I'd had when I looked at my trip-to-catch ratio.  We never missed a day and landed multiple tarpon every day during September, some days with double digit bites, just great!  That has slowed down though the last few days as the winds have kicked up to 20 mph, though some of the smaller tarpon are biting well in many of the creeks, canals, and islands around the everglades.  Yesterday I did some filming with Fishing Australia TV and we caught a couple juvenile tarpon, some snook, and a redfish for a backcountry SLAM.  Today we did similar getting a couple small tarpon, a real nice snook, a redfish, some big sharks, and a few other scallywags.  As I said last week was some epic days of tarpon fishing, we had a couple days landing 5, one with 4, and one with 2 and a beast of a snook that was 18 lbs.  Also some nice tripletails around we got a real nice one last week.  Capt. Bill Bassett has had a few snook and redfish in the backcountry, and still getting some bonefish around town as well.  Capt. John Johansen has had some good tarpon action in the backcountry.  Capt. Mike Bassett had a very good day with snook last week.  Capt. Perry Scuderi had mixed it up with triple tail, snook, sharks, and tarpon last week on a couple fun days of fishing.  Capt. Chris Daly had some good snook and redfish fishing a week or so again too, as did Capt. Jeff Beeler a couple days ago.  October as I said is usually the time for the fall bait run which leads to some of the most epic fishing we sometimes see all year!  The crowds are away and the fishing is good.  A perfect time to come!  Give us a shout if you are interested at 305-664-2461.

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