10/8/11 Some nasty weather, but great everglades fishing action!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk and Capt. Mike Bassett fished some of Rick's regulars down from NJ, Lee & Rob & Company for a florida keys charter.  The radar looked like lots of rain around so we waited to leave and made it over to the flamingo everglades area with no problem, decided to stick to just half a day due to weather concerns.  Stopped at our first spot, had the last of the falling tide for a good 1.5 hours and fishing was excellent!  Lots of snappers for dinner, a few nice big black drum, a nice slot red, one small snook and jumped another one off, and some big jacks!  Had a large bullshark eat a couple other fish, possibly nice reds or jacks.  Shrimp with jigs did the trick, throwing them up current and letting them sink along the edges of the banks and trees.  As the tide died at our spot everglades fishing islamorada we ran back towards home and hit a mud real quick.  A few trout and ladyfish in there, and one pompano too!  We stopped in one more area to try and get a few more snappers and the rain started to get us, and continued all the way home.  Totally worth it for these guys though, they always have a great time fishing at Bud n' Mary's!  Also nice to see a few of our winter time species starting to show up such as the pompano and black drum.

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

10/5/11 Islamorada Inshore Fishing Action!

Well the wind was howling for most of the day today on 10/5/11 and it was fairly choppy in the bay.  Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished a half day this morning with Lori and we were after some edible fish and some rod bending action!  We ran the edges of the banks to avoid the chop, staying within 30 minutes from home, and the ride wasn't too bad with the strong 15mph east-northeast breeze.  We got into the mangrove snappers pretty good in one of the cuts in the backcountry, cutting some fresh pinfish in half was the trick to catching some of the nicer 11-12 inch keepers.  Lots of smaller jacks and stuff came up in the chum as well during our islamorada fishing.  After catching enough for dinner we moved on and found a big area of mud that was loaded with trout and ladyfish.  With the wind blowing as hard as it was, it was tough to tell where the fish were since all the water was fairly muddy, but we hit them right the first drift and repeated that a few times, drifting through the fish for 5 minutes or so before we would be out of them.  Live shrimp on jigs did the trick here, not any keeper trout but we did save some ladyfish for baits.  After that we headed back towards home and put the big rods out.  The blacktips were swarming we had 2 bite us off right away, so we switched to wire leader and ended up catching 3, no tarpon bites or any other large critter.  After that we headed home, have a few more days booked of florida keys fishing charters this week so stay tuned for more october florida keys fishing report!

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

9/7/11 Great half day backcountry fishing action!

Capt. Vinnie Biondoletti had a couple half days the last few days fishing the florida keys backcountry.  Muds close by had plenty of trout, ladyfish, and snappers to bend the rod. Andy and Evan from Germany also caught blacktip sharks, a bonnet shark, and this nurse shark.  Keith and Chris Rowland from Texas caught their limit of snapper and trout to eat. Capt. Rick Stanczyk reported similar fishing with plenty of action from blacktip sharks as well.

8/24/11 Florida Keys Backcountry Fishing Action!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk has still been picking up a handful of half day trips short notice and getting some good action in on his islamorada backcountry fishing trips!  We headed out this A.M. in search of some table fare and the mangrove snapper bite in the bay has been pretty good!  We headed out to the west and anchored in an area where there has been plenty.  We chummed up a few small ballyhoos and netted a few of those.  Cutting them in half made perfect baits for the hungry mangs, also a few small ladyfish worked almost as well cut in small chunks. After we had enough of that we headed back towards Islamorada to try to bend the big rods.  We ended up jumping a small tarpon.  Then after putting the last couple pieces we hooked a double header.  One was a nice 30 lb cuda that skyrocketted all around the boat.  The other was some kind of monster hugged on the bottm!  We got the cuda in and released him and then proceeded to fight the other.  After a 15 minute battle we pulled up this huge sea monster!

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

8/22/11 Late summer tarpon action!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished a half day this morning with the Freed family.  We left out early at 7 am with a few weather cells looming in the islamorada backcountry.  We headed out to some of the bays out west and got lucky with the weather avoiding for the most part!  Using gulps we caught plenty of trout, snappers, and some ladyfish.  We weren't interested in keeping stuff for dinner, so mostly catch and release minus a few we kept for bait!  As the sun got higher the fishing slowed down a bit, so we decided to try and catch something big for the boys!  We ran back towards Islamorada and set up for some florida tarpon fishing!  Fishing 3 baits we sat and waited... had one shark bite us off without disturbing the rod at all - very strange!  A few minutes before we were about to head in as another storm cell approached and the temperature dropped and wind blew, ZING goes the line and a 60 lb tarpon goes airborne several times!  We fight him for about 20 minutes and get him to the boat!  Then head in before the rain, what a way to end the day islamorada backcountry fishing!!!

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