1/20/19 January Backcountry Fishing Report

January is nearing it's end though we still have some cold weather around with a front hitting us as I write, and some more cold on the way later in the week.  We had an early start with some colder weather back in November/early December, but then we had several fairly warm weeks.  Though January usually brings us the most cold weather we get down here.  Fishing has still been really good.  We've had excellent backcountry fishing for snook, redfish, drum, sheepshead, trout, and more.  I had my dad out a couple days last week and we had a record setting day for him.  He landed his largest snook of his life, close to a 30 lber!  We didn't weigh it or want to mess with it too much as these fish are fragile and obviously our breeding stock.  But he once caught one near as big way back as a youngster which won him the South Florida MET tournament back in Miami Beach.  Pretty cool to be able to best that record after all these years!  We also don't catch snook like that too often in our area so it's interesting to see.  Later in the week we had our friends Andy and Maria Newman out, and got into a good bite of larger size snook too catching a good half dozen and missing/losing a few more.  Andy also got a monster redfish, somewhere in the 30 to 35 lb range!  Again something we don't see often here in the Florida Keys.  We also caught 3 tarpon on this day as well as some black drum.  What can I say dad's been lucky to have on the boat lately!  Other than that, Capt. Mike Bassett reported some good spanish mackerel fishing in the gulf.  He also got an 18 lb tripletail last week which was a record for him.  Capt. Jim Willcox has had good fishing for redfish, snook, and the like back in the everglades.  Capt. Vinnie Biondoletti had good action on a half day staying close to home with big ladyfish, mackerel, and sharks.  Capt. Mike Venezia had some good backcountry action sheepshead, drum, snook, and redfish a few days ago.  Fishing is really good!  Tarpon season is just around the corner and February we usually start catching them somewhat consistently, though of course it's weather dependant that early and a late cold front can turn it right off.  So be prepared to go to Plan B if necessary.  Give us a shout if you want to get on down and go fishing, it's getting busy so best to plan ahead!  305-664-2461

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