2/10/17 Everglades Backcountry Fishing in February

Got out with my same guys from yesterday Howard and Mike.  Today was a different day it was blowing 20-25mph out of the north as a minor cold front hit us last night.  The temperatures didn’t really drop much at all though it was a little chilly but not cold.  I will say though the tides were the lowest I’d ever seen in the backcountry!  With the north wind blowing hard it blows the water out of the bay, but we also had a full moon, and winter time tides in general are often lower than usual.. so it was a trifecta of low water conditions!  I almost got stuck getting into the canal where you normally rarely have to even pay attention to getting in.  We made it though thankfully but did see a couple other boats that had some trouble.  Fishing wasn’t too bad we actually did OK considering the conditions – extra muddy water due to the wind, and that mid range water temperature that is in between normal winter time and normal summer time.  We had some nice live pilchards we caught around town before we left, and caught about a half dozen snook.  We probably lost another half dozen unfortunately but that is fishing, but it was good to have some action anyways.  We left there with about an hour of fishing time to spare to hit a few mangrove snapper spots on the way home for dinner.  We were able to catch some real nice mangrove snappers on the pilchards, several in the 2 to 3 lb range, and even got a snook doing that too!  Anyways it was a fun day and nice for my anglers to do something entirely different from yesterday as only the Keys can offer.  Hopefully the boys will be back to fish again soon.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

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