3/3/11 Windy day backcountry fishing, but good florida keys fishing action!
Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 05:22PM Well it was HOWLING today, reports of 33mph sustained winds out of the east - very nasty! Though the backcountry wasn't too bad if you rode along the edges of the banks and fished the runoff channels and such where you were protected. That's what Capt. Rick Stanczyk did, he had Dan Memory out for his first islamorada fishing trip. They started off catching some whopper trout, some over 20 inches, which were very nice as there hadn't been many big ones around. We also caught a handful of redfish, ladyfish, and an unusual flounder. We then put the big rods out which was tough as there were 3 footers in the main channel where we shark/tarpon fish with the tide going right into the wind! We gave it a try and ended up getting a few shark bites which bit us off, so we put the wire on and ended up catching a few blacktips which were very cool and acrobatic! We had two big 'mud marlin' on again as well, one slashed through the leader pretty quickly as he made his way directly out into the gulf - which was likely for the best as it was very rough out there! The other we fought for about 45 minutes and he stayed in the channel hugged to the bottom, though it was tough to pull on the leader myself and drive the boat at the same time with the howling winds, we finally got him tired and coming up a little when he started slashing around on the bottom and knicked the wind-on leader above the wire. But very tough battle, Dan said it was like trying to pull up a small car!
