Bn’M

4-8-13 Offshore Fishing Islamorada

Fishing in Islamorada has been pretty good the first week of April. Not every day has been a home run, but we’ve had action every trip and there’s been some good quality fish around. Today we had a very slow start to the day, and finally boated our first fish at 11:30! It was a nice 50 lb amberjack, followed by a 30 lber. After that we looked for some mahi, and after 20 minutes came across a school, but they didn’t want to bite very well. We caught a couple, and but just one keeper. It was just enough to feed our couple though, so they were happy! We decided to head back to the reef edge after that and right when we got in a saw a pack of sailfish swimming down sea. We struggle with live bait this morning, but did have a few left over from the day before. We managed two bites from the pack and caught and released one of them. After that a fellow fisherman gave us a few left over baits that they had. Next we tried for some permit and released 3 in all, with a pair of them around 30 lbs! We weren’t done yet though. We also hooked a double header sailfish and released both of them too! It wound up being a great day of Islamorada Fishing! Yesterday we started out by catching some nice vermillion snapper, and then did some trolling. We caught a pair of mahi, and one was a nice 20 lb bull. On the way home we stopped at a spot and sure enough saw some permit. Within 2 minutes we were hooked up! After a 20 minute battle on 15 lb test, Long time Bud n’ Mary’s Marina customer Tom, landed and released his biggest permit ever! A big 31 lber! The days before that we released some sharks, including this nice hammerhead, we caught some king mackerel, barracuda, and plenty of snapper. The sails have been a little tough the past month, but you never know when it’s going to be your day! So when your ready to get out fishing shoot me an email!

Capt. Nick Stanczyk

bnmcharters@gmail.com

4-1-13 Deep Sea Fishing in Islamorada

I have been slammed the past couple of weeks so my Islamorada Fishing Report is a little late. I’ll start with today and give you a basic run down of what we’ve been catching overall the past couple of weeks while offshore fishing islamorada. Today we went “offshore” and caught and released a big tiger shark about 500 lbs, and also had a few tilefish, porgy, a snowy grouper, a couple almaco jacks, a few vermillion snapper, and a 55 lb amberjack. On the Reef lately the king mackerel bite has been pretty good, although there was a few slower days mixed in. Yesterday we had our limit of king mackerel to 24 lbs. We also had a pair of cobia at 24 and 40 lbs. The cobia bite has been fair lately, it’s definitely a hunting game and you have to put your time in looking, we don’t catch them every day, but it does pay off to look inside the reef, in the shallow waters for a little while every day. The snapper bite has been pretty good lately too, lots of nice lane snappers and quite a few yellowtail snapper most days. We also caught a nice 27 lb african pomano last week as well as a 275 lb goliath grouper which we released. We will start heading offshore further in search of mahi soon, as well as blackfin tuna, but most of our days have still be spent on the reef lately. I also saw some permit yesterday near a wreck, so we should start catching a few of those as they live on some of the wrecks in the Spring. Send me an email if you’re looking to do an islamorada fishing charter and I’ll try to help you out!

Capt. Nick Stanczyk

bnmcharters@gmail.com

3-12-13 Fishing in Islamorada

March is a busy time here while fishing in Islamorada. We’ve been fishing just about every single day so far on the Bn’M and have had some great days and some decent days. March is a transitional month for sure. We get a little bit of everything, but not always a ton of one thing. We’ve had more cold weather in March than most of the winter and we have some more cold weather coming! The Shark Fishing was great our last trip offshore. We caught and released a big bull shark between 250 – 300 lbs, and then released an estimated 600 lb tiger shark! We also had some small blackfin tuna and a couple of decent size amberjack. The reef is where we have spent most of our trips however, and today we had the best bite of kingfish we have seen all year. We had our limit of fish up to 31 lbs. We also had a few snapper for dinner including a nice mutton snapper. There’s also been a bunch of barracuda around the reef, which makes for great action. There was some cobia action the past few days when the conditions were right too. We released some small fish on multiple occasions and had a few keepers up to 35 lbs. There has been a few mahi around, but not in great numbers yet. We had 4 one day but a couple of them were gaffers. We should start to see some more though as we roll into Spring while Islamorada fishing. Send me an email and I’ll get you our fishing!

Capt. Nick Stanczyk

bnmcharters@gmail.com

2-12-13 Fishing Islamorada in February

Well we just wrapped up the last of our Sailfish Tournaments aboard the Bn’M while Fishing Islamorada in February. Yesterday was the 32nd annual Islamorada Bartenders Sailfish Open where a Dozen different bars/restaurants competed against each other for the most sailfish releases to bring the big wooden plaque back to their place for a year. We started out Kite fishing and within the first 6 minutes we had our first hook up of the day. Within two minutes we grabbed the leader for an official release and put the baits back out. About an hour and a half later we had our second Islamorada Sailfishing encounter. After a bunch of jumps we were able to back down on the fish and get the leader for a 2nd release. It was slow fishing overall, with one other boat releasing a double header and 3 more boats releasing a single fish, but we were able to bring the trophy back to Dillons Pub for the 4th time in 7 years. We also caught a 34.6 lb king mackerel off the kite to win most outstanding catch other than a sailfish. Over the weekend we fished the Islamorada Women’s sailfish tournament. We started out Saturday with the first release 15 minutes into the tournament, but that was our only bite until 2:00 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. At the time we raised a double header sailfish, hooking one but unfortunately he broke the 12 lb test main line when a ton of sea weed got on the line. With a slow bite we still managed to finish in 3rd place overall. Deep Sea fishing in February in Islamorada usually still takes place on the reef, and we should start seeing some spring time fish here shortly. Let us know if you want to get out for some fun on an Islamorada Fishing Trip!

Capt. Nick Stanczyk

bnmcharters@gmail.com

 

1-17-13 Islamorada Reef Fishing

Today was kind of a weird day with weather while fishing in Islamorada. It was a pre-frontal day, with the morning starting out with a south-east wind and then no wind with quite a bit of rain, and then a north-west wind. We started out the day by catching live ballyhoo and cigar minnows for bait. The Bn’M was now ready for some Islamorada Fishing! We headed out another mile and fishing just outside the reef. We tried for a sailfish for an hour, but we never had a sailfish bite. We did catch a nice blackfin tuna though while trying. The next couple hours brought rain on and off, and we kept the baits out but didn’t have any action. Once the rain let up we decided to anchor down and do some bottom fishing. We caught plenty of nice yellowtail snapper for dinner. We also caught a nice gag grouper, which would have been a keeper, but since the season is closed he went back in the ocean. We picked off a couple cero mackerel and then made another move. About 1:30 p.m. we found a sailfish swimming over the sand bottom. I thought this might be our shot, we made a couple good casts, but the fish had no interest at all and kept on his way. We then decided to go for some more action and caught a handful of big barracudas up to 15 lbs. With the clock winding down we only had a little while left on our Islamorada offshore fishing trip. A couple boats to the south of me found a big school of cobia so we raced down there just in time for some action. Our first bite was a nice 25 lb cobia and was the fish of the day! We also caught a smaller one before wrapping up our deep sea fishing charter in the Florida Keys.

Capt. Nick Stanczyk

bnmcharters@gmail.com