Author: Capt. Rick Stanczyk

We got out today for a december key largo fishing charter into the backcountry.  The winds were ripping early on 30 mph out of the north as a cold front just came in last night.  The air temperatures steadily dropped and continued to stay cold throughout the day though the direct sun did warm us up a little.  It was a little bumpy in a few spots making the crossing into the backcountry but overall not really too bad.  We were jigging live shrimp in the key largo everglades areas.  We had a solid bite of black drum and snook, and got a couple reds and even a nice tarpon too!  It was really good fishing and well worth the price of admission.  You never know when these cold fronts roll in if it’ll be really good or really bad, I’ve seen it go both ways.  I always tell people you don’t know if you don’t go, and that’s the truth!  I think the boys each landed well into the double digits on fish so they were plenty happy.  The ride back through the bay in key largo was nice as the winds subsided to 15 mph.  Looks to stay that way the next several days and we should have a great week of fishing.  The temperatures will stay chilly however, but with lighter winds and colder water the sediment should drop out of the water and make the fishing even better.  We’ll have a report tomorrow so stay tuned!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

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

Got out with Tim and his daughter Bridgette today for a full day of key largo december backcountry fishing.  We decided to mix things up and try a variety of types of fishing.  We had a well of pilchards I caught the previous day plus plenty of live shrimp.  We found some good snook around some of the mangrove islands in key largo bay to start.  Good size ones in the 3 to 6 lb range, they were drag pullers!  After that we got into a good mangrove snapper bite.  These mangrove snappers in key largo are the best bet for table fare in the backcountry.  Nothing really beats them and you can cook them however you want!  We then headed out west towards the gulf of mexico to do some key largo spanish mackerel fishing.  We put some frozen chum out and started casting our shrimp tipped jigs.  Soon the blue runners showed up, then came the mackerels and big ladyfish!  We had good action for about an hour, and even got some lane snappers too while doing this.  It was a lot of fun.  After that we tried to put our big gear out for some tarpon or shark in one of the backcountry channels, however we didn’t have much luck with that not even a sniff!  Oh well all in all it was a banner day and was glad to be out there.  Looks like this weekend we are getting a good cold front (finally).  Look for the black drum and redfish fishing to pick up as we get into ‘winter mode.’  Could (and should) be very good for our inshore key largo fishing.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Blayze and his folks today for a half day key largo fishing trip.  He really wanted to try and catch redfish, which I said could be tough on a half day as we have to make a decent run and are at the mercy of whatever the tides/conditions are.  But I figured one area we might catch some other things if the reds weren’t happening.  I was loaded with bait from catching some the day before, nice razor belly pilchards and sandy key pilchards.  The key largo bait fishing has been a little tougher but being slow right now I can often bait fish on my days off before trips, so that’s a plus for the customers!  We headed out early with some shrimp and these pilchards and hit some bay islands in key largo.  The first held some snook, though not many.  We worked hard to catch 4 or so, mostly small guys, but it was fun.  We did see some baby tarpon rolling around too but no luck with them biting.  After that we bailed and I tried a snapper hole on the way home to hopefully get a little more action and some dinner for the family.  Well we did find some nice snappers, but mixed in were the elusive redfish!  We caught about a dozen, several nice size fish too in the 4 to 6 lb range (nice for our redfish anyhow).  It was so great to see a good group of these guys, as the last couple years they have been hard to find due to losing habitat from algae blooms etc… but I think the hurricane has helped clean out some ‘old school’ areas and these fish are moving back in.  It’s wonderful!  We also got about a 9 lb snook there too which was awesome.  Anyways Blayze had a great birthday trip to Key Largo, he caught a 350 lb swordfish with my brother yesterday too.  It doesn’t get any better then that.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out for a fun day of fishing with my dad, Richard Stanczyk Sr., friend and marina manager Stephen Byrd, and our friend Capt. Dave Peck.  Dave comes down every year this time of year to vacation and works a little bit running some charters as well.  We decided to fish some areas I hadn’t been too much since the hurricane and scope things out.  It was an awesome day we found a lot of redfish and decent amount of snook in the first couple stops.  These areas had not produced good fish in several years so I was very excited to see such life there again!  We had good action on our live pilchards as well as shrimp.  If you are wondering the the florida keys fishing calendar says about November, it’s usually a great time for those mentioned species.  But this is the best I’ve seen it since the Hurricane so we were loving it.  We then tried another area that I also hadn’t fished much lately, first stop was dead but then we moved a bit and low and behold, we found another good pack of redfish and snook!  We got some nice size snook here as well.  We then found one snook in another spot, as well as a lot of baitfish – threadfin herring!  These complimented our shrimp and pilchards well.  After that we just test out some other spots without much luck, but the tides were quite right for them to be honest.  But the last stop before home we smacked the snook again.  Quite a lot of little guys but we did catch a couple larger specimens.  Capt. Dave did hook about a 10 lber here which was the largest looking of the day, but he got away!  That’s fishing!  Anyways it was so great to see such life in many areas, I think we caught about 45 fish total between the 4 of us.  If you are down in Key Largo and want to go fishing, give me a shout I have several open days before the busy Christmas week!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Terry and his dad Paulie for a full day today.  We mixed it up and decided to fish in the everglades which is usually a good bet for key largo fishing in november.  We also decided afterwards to try the gulf of mexico.  The november spanish mackerel fishing in key largo usually heats up this time of year, though this year it’s been a little slow to start with the lack of cold weather and possibly the hurricane…  Anyways we had a good start we loaded up our live wells with pilchards and brought some shrimp along too.  We picked away at snook in the everglades canals fishing.  Not a red hot bite plus it was a saturday so there were boats everywhere!  But we managed a couple fish at each spot the first 3 spots we stopped at.  Paulie got the two largest ones, not bad for a 90 year old he had a lot of fun!  After that things slowed down a bit but we did see some cool crocodiles and wild bird life.  We decided to test out the gulf fishing and it was a good move!  We got the spanish mackerel chumming with frozen chum.  We had action on our shrimp with jigs as well as the live pilchards.  Paulie wasn’t as comfortable in the open water though it was farily calm so I assisted him with the casting and just used the live bait that we could let sit out there, while Terry jigged with shrimp at a faster pace.  We caught probably 8 or so mackerels, and probably had another 8 or 10 bites.  This is the best I’ve seen the mackerel fishing this year.  This was all in about an hour or so.  After the tide slowed down so did the bite.  But we also got some mixed bag action with lane snapper, blue runners, blue fish, and large lady fish.  Great way to end our day of key largo backcountry fishing!  Have plenty of open days the next couple weeks, give me a shout if you’d like to come on down!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out on the patch reefs of key largo today.  November fishing in Key Largo gives us some great options out in these areas.  The water cools down and the shallow water ‘patch reefs’ become alive with fish.  Usually we have a good variety including porgy, snapper, hogfish, grouper, and more…  The last couple times I was out however the snapper definitely dominated.  We got some good size mangrove snappers, nothing huge but respectable 12-14 inchers… great for some table fare!  There was also a good mix of yellowtail and mutton snapper mixed in.  Other than that we had some action with yellow bar jacks.  These fish are great actually as sashimi believe it or not.  We ended our day chumming with our live pilchards and got into a great little barracuda bite!  Key largo barracuda fishing is lots of fun on light tackle.  These guys were in the 4 to 6 lb range, perfect for our light gear.  We had to up our leader size to keep them from biting us off, but it was loads of fun.  They pull just as hard as a spanish mackerel and jump a little bit too.  It was a great day off the shallow reefs of key largo.  I’m fishing tomorrow then out of town for thanksgiving.  If you want to get out fishing next weekend though I’ll be back Friday evening and it’s wide open as of now!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out today with Gus and his friend Rick who is a local offshore captain of the Sea Horse charter boat.  November fishing in Key Largo is often pretty good especially in the backcountry.  One of the reasons I like it so much is Key Largo is fairly empty this time of year…  September through Christmas, aside from a few holiday weekends, are not too busy and especially this year with Hurricane Irma, so when you get on the water you often have things to yourself.  This was the case today as we fished on a Monday as well to avoid the weekend wanna-bes.  Gus visits his friend Rick in Key largo at least once a year and loves to snook fish, so we headed out to do that.  I had caught some good bait the previous day for inshore fishing key largo, which were pilchards.  Snook go crazy for them, especially this time of year.  We hit several creek mouths and runoffs in the key largo backcountry, and the first few places we stopped all held fish.  The water was just beautiful, some of the best I’d seen since the hurricane, so that is welcome news.  We’d been dealing with a lot of nasty algae water since the storm due to all the dead rotting grass and such, but hopefully that means its clearing up.  The snook were plentiful and we even found a few sea trout.  Trout fishing in the bays of key largo had been a little tougher lately, due to the aforementioned algae water, so these guys were a welcome surprise.  We didn’t kill anything and released all the fish unharmed.  Later on we found a few more snook on the top of the tide, fishing some of the shorelines of key largo, we also got a cool juvenile redfish too.  At the end of the day we found a bunch of smaller tarpon too, however they didn’t want to play with us.  We tried a few different tactics to catch them, including drifting free lined baits, anchoring in the rolling schools, and even trying to chum a little bit with the few baits we had left, but no love from them at all.  We did get a small 50 lb bull shark though which was cool.  Anyways it was a great day I think we landed over 20 snook, a half dozen trout, and a redfish, so great fishing!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Andy and his stepson Trey who were down here for a couple days of fishing in Key Largo over the weekend.  Trey wanted to try and catch his first snook, which I told them key largo snook fishing in November is usually a fairly good bet…  The water temperatures typically are starting to cool off, we get a ton of baitfish showing up with the first northerly winds, and it’s often a little less busy on the water being off season.  All those things make it a great time for hitting the key largo backcountry fishing for fun.  We actually were not able to catch our pilchards in the morning as they were a little too shallow to get to, but we brought plenty of shrimp and another captain did bring me a few scoops of pilchards later.  However all of our action came on the shrimp anyways.  Both Andy and Trey got their first snook, and several other nice fish too.  I think we landed a half dozen total and maybe missed a couple more.  Trey had the fish of the day which was likely in the 32 inch range, though we let all these fish go.  Later on Andy got a nice little 25 lb tarpon which was loads of fun.  We didn’t get him boat side but the memories will still surely last.  The tarpon fishing in key largo is usually not great this time of year, but with the warm weather we’ve had after the early front that hit is in late october, there have still been quite a few around.  Later on things slowed down a little and we didn’t fish a full day, just a 6 hour trip, but we tried several other spots and Trey got a black drum and a nice jack crevelle.  That was about all she wrote and we made our way back towards the marina in key largo.  The following day I had the boys out and we caught some mangrove snapper for dinner, some big ladyfish and more jacks, and a couple spanish mackerel.  It was awesome for them as they each landed probably half a dozen difference species of fish neither of them had caught before.  I’m back at it tomorrow for a full day of snook fishing and then fairly open throughout the week if anybody wants to go!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

With the warm up we’ve had in Key Largo since the good front at the end of October, things have returned to almost a summer time feel!  There has been good bonefish fishing in Key largo and a fair number of permit whilst doing so.  Stake up fishing on some of the flats has produced up to 8 fish in a session.  Several sessions as mentioned have also been rewarded with the elusive key largo permit.  This style of fishing makes things easy on the angler – you don’t need any experience really.  We put baits out in areas known to be frequented by bonefish and/or permit, and you just sit and wait for them to start screaming off drag!  Don’t worry about blowing your only shot trying to sight fish for these guys if you haven’t done it before.  This fishery exists year round down here, and in the winter months it can be good all throughout the day especially when its colder.  Capt. Richard Stanczyk Sr. had two nights landing 7 bonefish in a row last week, and got a permit one of those nights.  He also had his friend Rich Hastings who landed 4 bonefish and a nice permit as well. And just the other night they got one bonefish fishing with long time friend Andy Newman.  If you are visiting Key Largo and want to give flats fishing a try for bonefish, give me a shout we’ll get you hooked up.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing