Brrr it was a freezing cold day here in Key Largo Florida. Temperatures dipped down around 50 for 3 nights in a row, which meant it was around 40 in the backcountry everglades areas! That is pretty cold for us, and especially when making a 30+mile run into 20 mph winds first thing in the morning. But we get it done and you just have to bundle up. Once we get back around the mainland areas, it’s much nicer as you get out of the wind and are in protected water, and the sun comes up and you start to thaw out! I had Jody and Tom down from St Louis and luckily for us the fish were biting a little bit even though the water temperatures were down around 52 to 54 degrees! That’s the coldest we’ve seen in years, likely since the cold snap of 2010. When the water is cold like this, usually your best bet is just soaking live shrimp on the bottom. We let it lay and just twitch it slightly every so often. The drum bites can be very subtle, so when you feel a little nibbling, give them a few seconds and reel a little bit – if you feel the weight of the fish set the hook and if not, just continue letting it lay and try again when you feel the nibble. We didn’t have red hot action, but a slow steady pick all day long really which I’ll take. It was a Saturday too so we had about 20 other boats in the area to compete with throughout the day. Sometimes you know where to go to catch fish, but it’s hard to squeeze in where you want to go when so many other boats are trying to get there too. We caught probably 8 black drums, 7 redfish, a sheepshead, and a trout. A good day of key largo fishing in January no doubt! No snook for us though I know a few boats had good snook fishing, but they seemed to be stacked up in a couple areas. We slid in there at the end of the day but at that point they were sore lipped and didn’t bite for us. Oh well we had good action otherwise thankfully. I have plenty of availability this coming week, then next week I am booked every day! But this week should be incredible fishing we will be back on a warming trend, and once those water temps rise back up around 60 I think the fishing will really go off back there. It will also be during the week so much less boat traffic. If you are interested in going let me know, prime conditions starting Monday I believe.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
