1/19/13 Backcountry and Gulf fishing islamorada in january!

Well we've had another minor cold front hit the keys a few days ago for our islamorada fishing in january and chilled the water down a bit, luckily however not too cold and is back on a warming trend already.  Islamorada backcountry fishing has been decent the last few days.  Capt. Rick Stanczyk and Capt. Perry Scuderi had a group trip yesterday.  We picked at the redfish, black drum, and sheepshead.  Got one snook as well around an island moat.  In the afternoon we caught our limit of trout for dinner plus plenty of ladyfish, jacks, and a few pompano.  Today the islamorada flats fishing was similar in the back.  We got into a good snook bite this AM catching 8 or so, plus a nice redfish.  Picked a few more redfish as well as black drum out of the hole.  Then picked at fish in a few other places - sheepshead, mangrove snappers, and jacks.  Decided to try the trout january fishing islamorada again in the afternoon and we caught plenty of those, however not quite as large this time no keepers but lots of fun rod bending action.  Also got some pompano as well before heading home.  Capt. Mike Bassett reported good fishing in the gulf, they got into some spanish mackerel, a few cobia, a permit,  a 40 lb kingfish!!!... and some larger trout out there.  The weather is suppose to be calm tomorrow and continuing to warm, so look for some good fishing all over the place fishing in the florida keys!

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

4/11/11 Big day backcountry fishing tarpon!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk had a wonderful day in the islamorada backcountry fishing along with several other guides as well!  He fished Roger Barry and his son James from the U.K.  Roger fished with his father Richard Stanczyk almost 20 years ago for tarpon down here and loved fishing with him because Richard was always sharing his knowledge of fishing with him!  Well today was a treat for them, we caught and released two tarpon up to 60 lbs on the spinning rods which was a lot of fun!  Roger also caught this giant 400 lb goliath grouper off a bottom bait which was an unusual catch and quite amazing!  James also caught a large bottom dweller that was almost 250 lbs all by himself.  We also caught a small blacktip.  Capt. Jim Willcox was fishing next to us and went 2 for 4 on the tarpon.  Capt. Skip Nielsen reported good fishing as well, and Capt. Bill Basset jumped 5 fish.  Capt. Mike Basset had a nice snook in the back and caught three the day before which was good to see, plus several puppy drum reds.  The trout and ladyfish were biting decent as well.  On the ocean side, the Kalex had a rackful of nice 25-30 lb blackfin tunas!  The BnM caught another big tiger shark as well, and the Catch 22 reported a 600 lb mako eating several jacks and such they were trying to catch before they could get them to the boat!  Exciting fishing in Islamorada this April!!!