Had a couple half days the last two days fishing in the Key largo backcountry. Yesterday was a paid trip with Robert and Bradley. We had some penned up pilchards and hit some mangrove islands in the bay of key largo. We found some good size mangrove snappers, which were great tablefare for the local resturants afterwards. We also got the snook going pretty good. We landed 7 or so and missed a few others. Robert got the two biggest ones, both around 6 lbs or so nice fish. It was a fun little half day fishing charter in key largo! Today I went with my friend Capt. Bill Bassett just for a relaxing fun fishing day. We wanted to try some areas we hadn’t been in a while and fish some new stuff too. Pilchards were easily obtainable with light winds on the ocean side we found a herd of them and filled the well in a couple throws. We found some good snook in the first area where we had fished some years ago but not recently. Also got one nice redfish. We got out of there before the tide dropped too low and tried some other ares. Not much luck in the next stop, but the 3rd stop which was new to both of us had some life. We found a lot of baby barracudas, some big sharks swimming around, and tons of small mangrove snappers. It looked very lively with good water flow and healthy looking water. At some point we figure there is probably some better quality life there, so another feather in the cap to try some time. Looks like some cold weather coming this weekend, tomorrow night actually. It’ll be dropping into the 50s for several nights through into early next week. This should be good for some of our drum, snook, and redfish in the backcountry. Look for some epic fishing early next week… I’m booked tuesday and taking my dad Monday, but I am available Sunday if anyone wants to go, or Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday right now too. Don’t miss out this could be epic – will have a good report hopefully Monday afternoon.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
