Capt. Rick Stanczyk

2/15/13 Key Largo February Fishing Report

Looks like we have some more cold weather on the way this weekend. But the fish were feeding in the backcountry today for our february key largo fishing trip. We caught this nice small tarpon along with several large redfish, plus lost a nice snook at the boat, in one of the many creeks in the everglades on the falling tide. All on big ol’ shrimp nice, lively, and twitchy suckers! We took a look out in the gulf of mexico with the last of the falling tide to find a cobia, which we did. Unfortunately we had a hook pull on him and that was our only shot, but on the way back we saw plenty of triple tail on the crab buoys. We caught about 8 or so and one nice keeper for dinner for this key largo fishing in february day of fun! Hit some trout run-offs after all that and caught plenty of them too. Back near home the tarpon have been seen rolling in some of the basins and channels, we saw them on this day as well. We only had a couple tired pinfish left, but did make a few drifts and casted to some, alas none were interested. Look for it to get cold this weekend and perhaps our last good push of ‘cold weather’ fishing key largo. After that, tarpon will be back in the mix as we enter our key largo tarpon fishing season for 2013!

2-12-13 Key Largo Offshore Fishing Report

It’s been a rough few days lately while Key Largo Fishing. Yesterday was the 32nd annual Bartenders Sailfish open, where different bars and restaurants from Marathon to Key Largo compete against each other in a fun day of Sailfishing, where the most releases win. Sailfishing in Key Largo has been fair lately, but yesterday I wanted to stay closer to home since I heard of a few fish being released near alligator reef the day before. It happened to be the right move because after the first two hours of the tournament we had 2 sailfish releases, which proved to be just the right amount since we won 1st place in the tournament. We also had a couple king mackerel, including a “smoker”, 34.6 lber off the kite with 40 lb test monofilament leader, always nice to get lucky once in a while considering their razor sharp teeth. Over the Weekend was the two days womens sailfish tournament, and the bite was still a little slow. We started out about 10 miles south on the edge of the Reef of Key Largo, and right away we released a sailfish, but that was our only bite that day. The next day we raised 2 fish, and hooked one. Unfortunately we lost that fish when the line broke, but the girls still had a great time while on a Key Largo February fishing Charter. We still came in 3rd place so they were happy with that.

Capt. Nick Stanczyk

bnmcharters@gmail.com

bartenders saiflsih open — bartenders sailfish open

2/10/13 Key Largo Flats Fishing Report

Fishing with Capt. Dave there was something awesome reported while stake-up bonefishing. Key Largo bonefishing provides shots at large fish, stake-up fishing is a good bet when it’s windy and/or rainy. You simply position yourself on the edge of on a flat and put your shrimps on and sit and wait. Pre-cold fronts are often a spectacular time to fish as the bones can often go nuts foraging to prepare for the temperature drops. This is a often way to catch many bonefish, as well as shots at permit, or in this case, big mutton snapper! These muttons are an unusual catch while flats fishing key largo. Definitely some good eating fish! At first it was thought these guys were permit as they were making some erratic movements, then discovered they were these nice key largo mutton snapper fish! Also caught was a nice bonefish and a permit. Not bad for a half day late afternoon key largo fishing charter!

2-7-13 Deep Sea Fishing in Key Largo

Fishing in Key Largo has been great the past few days! We’ve been doing a little bit of everything lately too. Today we went on a Key Largo Swordfish Charter and managed to catch 1 broadbill swordfish, we also lost another one after a few minutes in the chair and had one other bite that we didn’t hook. Yesterday we went Key Largo Sailfishing with the girlfriends for the annual Poor Girls Sailfish tournament aboard the Catch 22. The girls wound up releasing 3 sailfish, which tied us for 3rd place, but unfortunately the other boats caught theirs before we did. The Day before that we did an afternoon 1/2 day fishing trip and started out by catching some fresh live bait. From there we went and caught about 10 snappers for dinner. After that we went for something a little bigger, so we headed out to about 300′ of water and sent down a live google eye. It didn’t take long before we hooked and landed a nice 40 lb amberjack. We only had an hour after that to fish, so we went and released about 10 barracuda, which are great fighters and pretty acrobatic as well. We’ve been fishing south of Key Largo about 20 minutes, so come on down for while there still time for February Fishing in Key Largo.

Capt. Nick Stanczyk

2-1-13 February Fishing in Key Largo

January 2013 is over but now it’s time for some Key Largo fishing in February. We had a cold front move through over night, but the over the past week we caught some good fish while fishing in Key Largo. We’ve been fishing a lot near conch reef, about 10 miles to the south of Key Largo. There’s been a few sailfish around, not swarming, but if you are patient and put your time in you have a great shot at catching a couple fish. There’s also been some great eating fish caught using shrimp down on the bottom. We’ve been catching an assortment of hogfish, porgy, and snapper. We’ve also been doing some wreck fishing on our deep sea key largo fishing charters and have been catching some amberjack and big red snapper, but unfortunately we have to release the snapper due to the closure. The fishing should continue to be good through the rest of the winter!

Capt. Nick Stanczyk

bnmcharters@gmail.com

1/29/13 Key largo backcountry fishing in january

The winds howled the last few days here in key largo florida fishing. Gusts up to 25 mph! We decided to take a run back to the cape area to get out of it. One nice thing about my comfortable 20′ seacraft is you can still make it to the cape and anywhere in the backcountry or bay and have a nice time. It doesn’t pound, slap, or spray you terribly – you can’t say that about many smaller skiffs and such. Once we got back around ‘the corner’ things were nice and we were in the lee of the wind. Our first stop for our january key largo fishing trip was in a creek that the water had been falling out of and left very low tide. The bugs had other plans and drove us right back out, so we worked the outside shorelines. This proved a good thing as we caught 3 big snook up to 13 lbs jigging shrimp on the sandbars. After about 10:00 or so we tried the creek again, now the sun had come up and wind swung around a bit, so the bugs were gone. We picked away at plenty of redfish, small black drum, and sheepshead. Redfish in key largo is a good bet in the winter time. We worked our way further in and continued doing the same, though we did get lucky and catch this huge ~20 lb black drum. We had to motor after him down the creek as he almost got around a bend on us!!! We moved further back and found some nice trout too. Around noon we headed back towards home and stopped in a channel for some rod bending action, which we had – plenty of trout, ladyfish, and jacks for 45 minutes before calling it a day. A great way to spend a 20mph windy day key largo fishing in january!!!

1/26/13 Backcountry fishing report Key Largo!

Welcome back to another backcountry key largo fishing report friends! Today I had regulars with me who love to fish. We ran back to the everglades and around the cape area. The lower water levels had puppy drum stacked up in some creek mouths and runoffs. We hit ’em good catching 30 or so. We also got some nice surprises… big black drum! We had 2 on, one we chased down though lost around a tree unfortunately. The other we made sure not to let that happen, a nice 20 lber! Key Largo black drum fishing is a blast! We continued picking away at fish on the low tide, then when it started rising we moved to another creek. We caught lots of snapper, jacks, ladyfish, some trout, sheepshead, and a few more bigger redfish. The boys wanted to try for a snook, so we hit several spots in search of one. They were not biting red hot, but after 4 or so moves, we finally got lucky and got the kids one – a nice 5 lber. Key Largo Fishing Charters can offer quite the array of game fish. We also caught a few more sheepshead and such, and then made our way back home from the key largo flats fishing.

1-22-13 January Key Largo Fishing Report

Everybody always asks what can I catch while deep sea fishing in Key Largo? I always explain to them that the time of year will dictate what we will catch, especially while Key Largo fishing in January. Today we went out for some bottom fishing in 400 – 600′ of water, also known as “deep dropping”. It is a lot of cranking, but the work is usually worth the reward, since these are some of the best eating fish we catch Key Largo offshore fishing. We caught our limit of blueline tilefish, snowy grouper, and yellowedge grouper. After that we came back to the reef and hunted for cobia, we didn’t have any success there, but we did drop on a wreck and catch a decent mutton snapper for dinner too. Yesterday we fished 2 trips on the Key Largo Fishing Charters on the Bn’M and in the morning we caught our limit of king mackerel and a couple barracudas, in the afternoon we started slow catching a nice yellowtail snapper on the bottom, a decent blackfin tuna a while after, and about 30 minutes before we had to go home we hooked our first sailfish. We released the fish after a 20 minute fight and put the baits back out for a few more minutes. Within 2 minutes we had another sailfish in the spread and he gobbled down a ballyhoo. After a 10 minute fight we released the fish and went headed home with 2 release flags flying. The winter fishing in Key Largo should continue to be good, so send us an email and make the 20 minute drive south, it will be worth your time!

Capt. Nick Stanczyk

mailto:bnmcharters@gmail.com

1/19/13 January Key Largo Fishing Report

Well friends we’ve had another cold front here key largo fishing in january. The fishing has been good though while not are standard winter time agenda in the backcountry, the usual cast of characters can be found. Fish are a lot more spread out as it’s been generally warm so they aren’t ‘holed up’ in their winter time hideouts. Today we started out around east cape and caught the last of the incoming tide. We got into a snook flurry, catching 8 or so plus a nice 24″ redfish. We also caught some more small redfish, black drum, and sheepshead, all on shrimp. Next on our key largo fishing charter agenda we hit some more corners and plugs in the various canals, alas catching was sporadic and a mix of snapper, jacks, ladyfish, and sheepshead – but still lots of rod bending fun! We then ran back towards flamingo and looked for some seatrout. Key largo trout fishing was good we had plenty of action though all cookie-cutter size trout of 14 inches or so, just barely undersized! Yesterday we got our limit of nice 15-19 inch trout in under an hour, today not the case but still much fun! We also got some pompano, more ladyfish, and jacks. Not a bad way to spend a beautiful day january fishing key largo. Look for fishing to continute to imporve if the weather stays warm we will be in for an early tarpon season, plus good action in the gulf if things stay calm!

1/12/13 Key Largo Backcountry Fishing Report

Winds were still howling today it’s been rough the past several days but that hasn’t kept us from getting out on the water and having a great time! Today on our key largo backcountry fishing trip we hit the edge of the gulf of mexico. Lots of spanish mackerel and mangrove snapper was the take! Shiny jigs tipped with shrimp did the trick, and of course a nice chum slick. I like to use 60# test mono for my leader, this holds up fairly well to the toothy mackerel, and is much easier to tie and handle then messing with wire. The snappers weren’t picky and ate it as well. We also did some key largo shark fishing and cut some fresh mackerel and put it on the bottom. Got a couple of nice blacktip sharks this way – even had a 300+ lb goliath grouper come up and try to eat the smaller of the sharks. We ended up hooking him however we didn’t have heavy enough equipment to pull him from the wreck on this january key largo fishing charter. After the tide quit, we ran into the backcountry and hit some channel run-offs on the end of the falling tide there. Had to look around a bit as the water has been really stirred up due to the 15-20mph east winds. We found a nice runoff and way up inside the water was looking much better. We caught several trout, one nice one of 22 inches and a few other keepers plus throwbacks. After they quite we looked around a bit more and eventually found another pack of them mixed in with lots of ladyfish. Great way to end the day fishing key largo in january!