Got out today with Joe and Harold down from the chilly northeast to enjoy some florida sunshine! It was a nice flat calm day in key largo perfect for fishing. I knew we had similar conditions to yesterday and thought we might have a shot at a repeat if we played our cards right. The boys were down to try so we headed out into the key largo backcountry early. We got on a good bite of black drums early on, nice size fish in the 8 to 12 lb range. Jigs with shrimp did the trick with the colder water temperatures. Joe even got a 15 lber later in the day, not one of those ‘big nasty’ monsters but respectable and a fighter! We were also lucky enough to get some good shots at some monster snook! We caught a nice one for Joe in the first area. Harold had one on for a few minutes that zipped out 30 yards of line and got us around some structure! We chased him down and got around the structure, I thought we’d land the fish but he went through the leader! Oh no! We looked for triple tails for a bit without much luck and then we found some more snook and drum in another area. We landed another half dozen beautiful big snook and about 8 more drum. It was just a magical day of winter time fishing in key largo. Harold and Joe will remember this day for a long time to come I’m sure, as will I. We really dream about days like these as guides and wish they were all like this, but then I guess you wouldn’t appreciate them as much.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
