1-16-11 - Backcountry action!!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished Howard and Mike today for a full day in the backcountry off of Islamorada, Florida Keys.  We had incoming tide most of the day, so we ran and fished the edge of the gulf of mexico to fish for spanish mackerel.  The mackerel bite was great!  We stopped at some sunken debris down off long key.  Caught probably 2 dozen, and a dozen or so nice mangrove snappers.  After this we ran further out in the the gulf, and hit a couple more spots in hops of fishing for cobia or maybe getting a nice goliath grouper or shark.  Unfortunately the water was still a little chilly, in the low 60s, so we didn't have much luck with anything except some small jacks.  We ran back into the park around 11:30 and caught the last of the in tide in a little runoff and caught some nice trout and ladyfish!  When that dried up, we moved to another runoff a couple miles away, and caught the beginning of the falling tide.  Some more trout and ladyfish, and we also caught half a dozen pompanos which was a nice surprise!  No redfish, and had to cut our trip a little short before the tide got low enough for them to stack up, but great action and variety fishing the florida everglades!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
305-747-6903
http://www.budnmarys.com
rick@seethefloridakeys.net

1/10/11 - Fantastic redfish bite as well as mackerel!!!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk took his father out, Capt. Richard Stanczyk Sr., along with family friend and photographer Ron Modra for some Islamorada fishing.  They had a late start around 9 am, and got back to one of Richard's old favorite spots around 10.  They stopped to catch a few pinfish at first, which came right up with a little chum.  We stopped in a runoff creek and caught a handful of nice trout as well as some jacks.  Putting up a little further (upon Rick's suggestion) they got into a huge mess of redfish!  It was action every cast, some eating bare jigs!  Probably caught 75 in total in about 2 hours.  Also caught a nice bluefish on a pinfish as well as this nicer red (pictured).  After the tide quit falling we ate some lunch and ran out into the gulf.  Not much happening out there, though we did see shocked permit swimming around, threw him a shrimp which he boiled on but wouldn't eat.  After this we ran back towards home and stopped at a favorite mackerel spot.  Caught about 25 mackerels, with the little chum we had, and a nice one that was close to 8 lbs (pictured)!  Had a good bite on the shark rod though that we missed, and called it a day!  Gorgeous weather, some clouds and rain around though that didn't bother us.  Fabulous day of fishing in the florida keys!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
305-747-6903
rick@seethefloridakeys.net

Great weather, great fishing on the patches! 1/3/11

With the winds dying out and blowing around 10 mph out of the north, it's been fairly calm out front for a little Florida Keys Fishing.  Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished a half day this morning and did well on some shallow patches.  Shrimp was the bait of choice as well as a few chunks of ballyhoo.  We caught plenty of mangrove snappers along with a handful of nice ones, lots of blue runners, yellowtail, some smaller grouper varieties, some spanish mackerel, porgies, and 8 or so 6-10 lb jack crevalles.  Very fun on light tackle!!!  It was calm enough to go out a little further as the report from yesterday was the kingfish were biting so good they were eating jigs with shrimp, however we didn't have any luck doing that the last 45 minutes of our day, so we headed in to end our day of Islamorada Fishing.  We caught plenty of fish for lunch and sent the boys over to lazy days for some lazy days style snapper!  Capt. Skip Nielsen also reported similar catches from the day before, he also caught some nice cudas around the lighthouse as well as some king mackerel!

12/29/10 - Still a little chilly, but fishable and fun!

Capt. Jim Willcox today catching over 150 redfish in some deeper channels way back in the everglades today, despite being record lows just a a couple nights ago!  He said trout fishing was not happening yet the couple spots he tried.  Capt. Rick Stanczyk, Capt. Ken Cohan, and Capt. Ed Cale had good fishing on the patch reefs, lots of porgies, snappers, few nice groupers and muttons, hogfish, and some nice cero mackerels!  Ken also caught a few pompanos, and Rick had a big bluefish!  Capt. Mike Bassett reported catching a couple smaller tarpon in one of the local Islamorada canals, all huddle up from the cold weather!  Capt. Nick Stanczyk aboard the BnM had 5 sailfish today!  Capt. Alex Adler aboard the Kalex had some nice king mackerels, and smaller cero's, as well as some bottom fish and a nice cuda caught by a young angler!  Looks like the weather will just be getting nicer and nice as we move in to the weekend, and hopefully hold up for next week!