1/21/17 Florida Keys Fishing in January

Today the wind kicked up a little bit again it wasn’t flat calm like yesterday.  But not too bad a light southerly breeze most of the day that did kick up a little more to 10 -15 mph by the end of the day.  We hit the gulf again and had good fishing.  The first stop we didn’t find the cobias on the wreck where they were yesterday, but we had plenty of action with jacks, snappers, and a couple mackerel.  We ran to another spot after about 45 minutes to try and the mackerel were swarming there we probably caught 20 or so in about an hour.  After that we ran another 10 miles out into the gulf to try a deeper wreck.  We didn’t see many triple tail on the way out, none as a matter of fact.  The wreck had some big goliaths on it, we caught 3 up to 150 lbs which was cool!  But not much else for other fish there either.  We ran back towards the mainland and did catch one triple tail on the way in, a little guy off of a crab pot buoy.  We tried a piece of structure for more cobia on the way but no luck there.  Finally the last stop of the day the water looked pretty and green and we hooked some big critters right away but we had a couple break us off twice in a row.  I threw a pinfish out and we hooked up instantly to a cobia!  After that we ended up catching another one, and had a third one on for a while that was a nice fish (keeper size) but unfortunately when we got him to the landing net on the leader, he broke off before we could get him in the net!  Anyways it was a fun fight and a technical release since we had the leader, though that doesn’t make people feel much better that are wanting to throw him in the ice box!  Anyways after that we were out of pinfish but we caught some big sharks, a couple big bull sharks one of 150 lbs, and the other likely 250 lbs a real monster!  It was a great way to finish up another fabulous fishing day in Islamorada, Florida.  Looks like the winds are gonna kick up to 20-25 mph tomorrow, and then swing around west to north as another cold front hits us on Monday.  I have a half day in the morning hopefully we can get it done and then not much until mid-week which is just as well I think Monday and possibly Tuesday may not be great for fishing… But you never know sometimes the forecasters are wrong!   Gimme a shout if you are looking to get out I’ll shoot you straight.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk