Got out with Vince and Steven again who fished with me a few days ago, along with Vince’s son Lucas. The key largo fishing forecast looked a lot worse then the day was, which happens fairly often here believe it or not. A very fishable day even though it was a little chilly but the wind didn’t get crazy like they said. It didn’t rain hard either just a light drizzle for about 20 minutes while we fished. We hit the backcountry with them and fished in the everglades. The water temperatures have cooled off since the last mild front, but not gotten super cold which can drive the fish into a feeding frenzy in the ‘winter time spots.’ The day started a little slow we got one snook in key largo in the first 30 minutes or so, that was it. We moved spots and then caught a black drum, then a little later a redfish, then a black drum… so we were picking away slowly. As the tide was nearing the end of it’s fall, the bite turned on! We ended up getting on to a good bite of more black drum, and about 4 or 5 snook. In about an hour we caught a dozen or so more drums. That definitely made the day, though it’s nice when you can space that fishing out across the entire day, it doesn’t always work like that! After the bite died we moved around and tried another half dozen spots. But not much else happening, we caught one more snook in one of those spots and that was it! I talked to a few other people who had very tough days as well, so I felt good we were able to catch a good amount of fish. Nothing super huge, but I’ll take the numbers most days to keep my customers busy catching… unless of course they are hunting for that one ‘big one.’ After that we headed on home, I think it did get a little nastier later in the afternoon but luckily after we were at the dock. Looks like later this week it’s suppose to get super cold, down into the high 40s which means low 40s possibly 30s back in the everglades areas. It won’t last long though just a few nights. This will definitely fire up the winter time cold water bite, but tough to say if it’ll happen during the front or after it passes. This one sounds so severe the fish might go lock jaw until things warm slightly, which could be later in the day on the next few days, or perhaps even after the entire front passes and we get back on a warming trend. You can never really know, unless you go! I’ll be going out tomorrow and saturday for sure. Sunday I am open and plenty of days next week, and that should be good fishing as we will be on that warming trend!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
