5/3/12 Florida Keys Backcountry Fishing Report

Well the rain has finally cleared and we had some pretty weather today although it was still pretty breezy!  Much of the water in the backcountry is still very churned up from the hard winds we had the past few days, that should settle and by the weekend it is suppose to be nice and calm.  The past few days Capt. Rick Stanczyk has been running far near the mainland of south florida in the everglades backcountry fishing.  The mud marlin have been biting consistently, we caught 2 the day before yesterday and 1 today.  Today we also caught several big lemon sharks and one blacktip shark.  Ladyfish was the bait of choice on the bottom.  Yesterday we got into the redfish pretty good, found an area where the water was fairly clean compared to the rest of the bay/gulf water which was very muddy.  We caught 2 dozen nice islamorada redfish up to 8 lbs, mostly on shrimp though several on cut bait on the bottom.  Today we tried the same thing and caught a handful of reds though not like the other day.  Though we did get a nice size florida keys snook out of one of the creeks, and found a good mud on the way home loaded with nice trout and ladyfish.  The islamorada tarpon fishing report has not been real good... the fish will hopefully start showing up more in the backcountry channels and around the local spots as well, perhaps on the next moon and once the weather stabalizes.  Several boats the other night reported no bites at all unfortunately, when we get back into having falling tides in the evenings things will improve.  Capt. Bill Bassett reported a good bite of redfish way back at Cape Sable yesterday, they caught fish up to 15 lbs, poling and casting into ditches.  Capt. Jim Willcox had some nice redfish today as well.

2/24/12 Great backcountry fishing for big fish!

Today we had the wind out of the south again though not blowing too hard about 10 mph.  Capt. Jim Willcox and Capt. Rick Stanczyk were both fishing out on the edge of the gulf in everglades national park for this trip fishing islamorada in february.  Both reported good catches of big trout in the bays with a mix of ladyfish, snappers, jacks, and occasionally other fish as well!  After that both fished some of the channels in the area.  Capt. Willcox caught this monster tarpon!  Many of the fish back there now are very large mostly 100+ lbs!  Capt. Stanczyk caught this 'mud marlin' that was close to 200 lbs!  They also caught a 15 lb cobia that was following him, unfortunately they didn't have a gaff and he jumped out of the net.  After that fight with the sea monster, the anglers had enough big stuff.  So they hit some shallow spots for some redfish since they were about at the bottom of the falling tide.  They had some luck catching about 10 redfish up to 8 lbs, and a mix of trout in there as well as a few on fly!  They ran back up to the east along the mainland since they wanted to see some more of the everglades, and ended up catching a nice snook on artifcial GULP bait, and a couple more reds around some islands.  Great way to end a fantastic day of florida keys fishing charters!  Capt. Ken Cohan also reported an encounter with a seamonster and a cobia.  Florida keys tarpon fishing is starting now, come down and get in on the action!

2/14/12 + 2/15/12 Post cold front Islamorada backcountry fishing report!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished the last few days after our recent cold front in the Florida Keys backcountry, from west of flamingo out around the cape area and further northwest.  It's quite a run for an islamorada fishing charter taking over an hour to get to.  The recent front we had chilled the water down considerably, but pushed many fish out from the gulf and further up north into some of the creeks and canals in search of deeper warmer water.  On 2/14/12 I fished Nilson and his wife from Sweden.  We caught 10 snook and lost a couple nicer ones.  Lots of redfish too about 2 dozen, and even caught a baby goliath grouper which I have not seen any of those since the cold snap of 2010 that killed them off along with many of the snook.  We ended the day catching trout on artificial GULPs.  Today I fished the Levor's who have fished out of Bud n' Mary's for many years, mostly with Capt. Paul Ross on the Relentless.  We did the same thing, but today the snook were much bigger!  We caught 5, some nice fish 10 lbs and a little over, lots of fun on light spin.  Had almost 2 hours of incoming tide today, whereas yesterday we didn't have any, arriving at roughly the same time.  We last about 5 others that we pulled hooks on, cut lines on, and lost in the trees.  But that's snook fishing!  The bait of choice was a large horn hooked shrimp, though the big ones are scarce.  We also caught a couple off of pinfish on the bottom.  We caught several redfish as well, and a small lemon shark.  Had a big 200 lb lemon inside one creek eat one of our reds, and pulled another one away from him before he got it.  Got some decent slot size fish today and saved a couple for dinner.  Caught a flounder as well, plus several mangrove snappers and jacks in another creek, and again ended the day with some trout.  Great news for our Islamorada flats fishing. 

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

Capt. Paul Ross had several nice mutton snappers up to 15 lbs today as well on the offshore side!

2/3/12 Great fishing in the everglades despite the wind!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished with Carlo and his brother down from Canada today on 2/3/12 for a full day islamorada fishing charter.  The winds were howling, a steady 20+mph all day with gusts over 25!  Luckily it is coming from the eastern quadrant which is not too bad in the everglades.  We skated the edges of the banks and channels towards flamingo, arriving early at 8:00 am.  Caught the end of the falling tide.. first boat there luckily.  Fishing was red hot, we used primarily shrimp.  Lots of redfish, a handful of slot fish mixed in with lots of puppy drum.  We caught a couple nice snook early too, one with a horn hooked shrimp on a jig, the other off a pinfish on the bottom.  Several black drum were in there too with one nice size one, as well as half a dozen slot trout which we kept!  We fished for a few hours catching close to 50 fish, through the slack tide and the in tide.  After things slowed a bit, we moved to some channels a little further west for some florida keys shark fishing.  Lots of trout in there mixed in with jacks, no pompanos today.  We saved some stuff for bait, and after we ran out of shrimp, moved deeper in the channel for some shark fishing.  We caught probably 8 black tips, mostly little ones, and this nice 90 lb bull shark.  No tarpon today though the hard winds and bit of chill in the air likely has shut them off again.  Last bait of the day we hooked something big... ran us down to the mono backing on our BG 90 while I threw the anchor ball.  We chased the big sea monster around for 25 minutes or so, but unfortunately while pulling on him he got the wind-on leader wrapped around his sharp toothy bill and cut us off!  We then headed home, the boys are fishing offshore tomorrow and staying on one of Bud n' Mary's houseboats tonight!

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

1/28/12 Good Backcountry Fishing in Flamingo

Bob and Bobby Joyce from Boston went out on a full day in the backcountry with Capt. Vinnie Biondoletti a few days ago. They fished in the Flamingo area catching trout, redfish, and Blackdrum. They also caught black drum and a snook!  Capt. Skip Nielsen reported a good bite of tarpon the other day in the backcountry with Cliff Fox, they caught 4 out of 6!  Capt. Rick Stanczyk reported a good spanish mackerel bite on the edge of the gulf yesterday, they caught a boat load, plus mangrove snappers, trout, and pompano.  They jumped a couple tarpon they couldn't get to stay on, but did catch a couple 100lb bull sharks!  The tarpon may thin out again for a few days since we had a drop in temperature, but after it warms up again for a few days it should be game on!