3/29/13 Florida Keys Backcountry Fishing Report

Well the backcountry fishing in Islamorada has been on the slow side the past several days.  We had another extreme late cold front and the nightly lows were in the low 50s, bringing some of the water temperatures in the everglades down to the high 50s making things very sluggish back there.  Even the local islamorada bay waters were down in the low 60s though are now climbing back up.  The islamorada patch reef fishing has been the hot ticket the last several days.  We had action with a variety of fish out there including lots of mangrove snappers, yellowtails, porgies, grunts, and blue runners.  We caught occasional nice hogfish, some various smaller groupers, and even a few small sharks and such.  Some guides that did fish in the backcountry that in the afternoon a few fish did bite.  Capt. Bill Bassett was able to find a handful of mackerels and snappers mixed in with lots of jacks and such.  Capt. Jack Backus did get a nice trout bite in the backcountry yesterday afternoon as well.  Capt. Mark Hlis was able to find some redfish poling in the afternoon too.  Today lots of guides were fishing the patch reefs and most had good action and a good mix of fish for dinner.  I had Andrew and son Alex Lee, they caught a mess of fish including some nice mangrove snappers, a couple hogfish, a few porgies, yellowtails, and a few small bonnet head and reef sharks.  The tarpon fishing the last few nights was very slow as the water temperatures were still below 70, that should be improving the next few nights and we do have some ideal tidal situations the next several nights, if the water warms up enough the next few days the tarpon fishing will likely improve tremendously.  Last night we saw plenty of fish rolling in 3 different spots we fished though none wanted to take a bait, live or dead.  April islamorada tarpon fishing is usually much more consistent and fish are here, so make your plans now as guides are booking up fast and this is one of the busiest spring seasons we have ever had!

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

12/17/11 Action packed reef and gulf fishing islamorada!

Capt. Vinnie Biondoletti fished Jerry Fontain his daughter Melanie and Mike Plonian. They went out to the patches this morning.  They caught lots of nice porgy, Hogfish and bar jacks along with some throw back grouper.  Lots of action fishing the islamorada patch reefs!  Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished this afternoon and reported a good spanish mackerel bite close to home in the bay behind Channel #2 and #5.  Mix of jacks, trout, ladyfish, and snapper in there as well.  The sharks were swarming too, caught a nice 60 lb blacktip and jumped a few others.  Further out offshore the offshore boats had a good bite of king mackerel and handful of sailfish bites though not real red hot.  The florida keys reef fishing was good however, the party fishing boat Miss Islamorada had tons of yellowtail - great dinner! 

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!