December 2018

Joel and Alan had a fantastic day out on the water with me today. The winds let up it was a little southeasterly early but then got near slick calm in the backcountry by late morning. We had very good fishing for redfish with some snook mixed in as well and Joel got a black drum too. Really wore the boys out it’s been very nice to see so many fish. After that we caught a few mullets and headed out into the gulf to try some structure. No luck on those spots but we did catch a half dozen triple tails while running around which was cool to mix it up. We did pull the hook on a nice big 10 lber, but a good fight none the less and the boys were practicing catch and release so no heartbreak there! We then found some more snook and a few redfish along some shorelines, solid action again! We tried one more hole for something big as the weather really slicked out and the water looked nice and clean. Joel did get a big sting ray and a nurse shark, but nothing super exotic. Anyways still a great day, fishing is so good right now! Looks like we’ll have some flat calm weather the next couple days, tarpon could show up who knows! I’m fishing the next two days, then I have a good stretch of openings until mid December. So if anyone wants to go, it’s really as good as it gets right now don’t miss out!

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

Another great day this time with Tat, Bob, and Bobby. The boys were visiting from Oklahoma and hadn’t been saltwater fishing before. They were excited to see what it was all about. I told them fishing had been good, though we had a big condition change with the wind swinging hard south/southeast and warming up a lot from the last couple of days. I had a gameplan though that I thought they’d enjoy for some variety. We headed on out and found some good redfish and snook action on some shorelines. Lots of mullets splashing around and the fish were happy. We worked the area for a good couple hours, catching doubles and triple headers almost as much as you wanted. We even went to artificials for a while to try and up the difficulty and it was still almost every cast! After that we caught a few of those mullets to have some fresh cut bait or little livies if we needed them. We hit the gulf after that, and got into a mess of jack crevelles. I was hoping some mackerels would be out there but we only caught one of them. We did have a good pack of cobias swim up though… quickly we grabbed a rod and hooked up a small finger mullet. We got sucked off, but luckily got another shot a little later and Tat hooked up. While he fought it another one swam back up and Bobby casted a big shrimp and hooked one as well – double header! We got them both up for pictures and it was a blast on light tackle. After that we tried some other mackerel grounds and caught one more mackerel there but that was it! Have not had much luck with the mackerels yet, thankfully a lot of our other fishing has been very good! We ran to one other spot and caught some nice mangrove snappers for dinner, and a few trout and ladyfish as well. Just a great day with a bunch of variety and some dinner for the boys, one they won’t soon forget. They are going offshore fishing the next couple days including one day swordfishing with my brother, thankfully the wind will be laying down some for them for that. Fishing is really good and still plenty of days open in early/mid December, give me a shout while it’s hot! Back at it tomorrow.

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