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

9/19/11 Variety in the backcountry, still good summer-time fishin'

Capt. Vinnie Biondoletti has fished a few days and half days backcountry in the past week.  His son Ryan caught 4 nice reds sight fishing with him for a few hours, including this nice one!  Tom & Christine also caught several pictured as well as some trout, ladyfish, and sharks!  Ed Phillips and his son Mike had similar fishing, and also caught this nice toothy barracuda!

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.

7/28/11 Baby hammerhead, tarpon, big trout and snaps!

Well it's not all about lobster mini season this week!  Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished a full day in the backcountry today on 7/28/11 and had a wonderful time.  The wind was howling almost 20 knots most the day - very unusual for July!  Though it kept the heat & sweat down for the most part which was a welcome change.  With thousands of people in the water snorkeling and diving looking for those caribbean crawlers, we ran way in the backcountry and only saw one other boat the whole day back there!  Fishing was fantastic early, we caught several large trout on shrimp and artificials.  We also caught some jumbo mangrove snappers!  The ladyfish were chomping too and we saved several of those for bait.  We set up in one of the channels for some bigger stuff, and the bite was slow to come but produced nicely.  We caught a 75 lb tarpon after our first hour.  Then a 60 lb lemon shark, followed by a 40 lb hammerhead, and finally a small 30 lb blacktip!  Not too shabby for the conditions and time of year.  We tried around one of the islands at the end of the day for a few reds but we didn't find any. However a few days ago, Capt. Vinnie Biondeletti took his son Ryan out and did manage to wrangle up a few sight fishing in the everglades!

7/13/11 Night tarpon fishing and florida keys backcountry fishing!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished with Graeme and his father over from Scotland last night and today. They wanted to catch some big stuff for their florida keys fishing charter trip.  We went out late yesterday afternoon in search of tarpon.  With the in tide and most of the migrating fish gone from the local areas we usually night fish at it looked like it may be tough.  We caught some stuff for bait and brouht some crabs and gave it our best shot.  We had two tarpon bites early and caught one fish that was roughly 60 lbs and had another jump and spit the bait!  We also caught some nice lemon sharks and had a couple others bite us off.  When it started getting closer to dark we began drifting with our crabs.  Jumped another tarpon on our 2nd drift close to dark.  It was a pretty night almost full moon, and on our last drift Grame hooked one about 90 lbs that gave him a good 30 minute battle before we went in!  Very pretty to see a tarpon jumping in the bright moon light!  We fished a full day in the everglades today, it was brutally hot but fishing was decent.  We caught our limit of trout, some snappers and a few ladyfish.  We caught one tarpon in one of the channels way in the back plus a few blacktip sharks.  We moved to another area and caught a few more sharks, including a big 200 lb lemon shark!  We also caught a triple tail on a GULP shrimp, after casting to him several times with no response we finally hit him on the head with it and he GULPED it!