12/7/16 December Islamorada Patch Reef Fishing

Got out for a half day today with Jeremy Fellgraff and his father Jon.  They’ve been fishing with me for the last several years and Jeremy even moved down here from NJ after our first trip together because he loved it so much.  The wind slicked off today just a light breath of wind out of the southwest.  We found a load of pilchards near the marina on the way out and caught some of them, though most of our action was on shrimp today.  We hit the patches first and caught plenty of mutton snapper, porgies, and a few other specimens including a nice lane snapper.  We then went in the bay and hit a wreck that was loaded with small to medium size pompano!  We probably caught about a dozen or so, plus plenty of jack crevelle, mangrove snapper, blue runners, and even a few mackerel.  It was something every cast for a while!  After that we tried a couple spots for local islamorada snook.  This winter there have been some fish around locally in certain areas and if you have the pilchards you can usually have a shot at catching them.  Anyways the first stop we didn’t get anything, but the next one both Jeremy and Jon landed nice medium sized snook plus some decent mangrove snappers.  A great way to end our morning half day trip in the Florida Keys!  Fingers crossed I’ll be getting my boat back this afternoon and hopefully back up and running tomorrow.  Looks like some cooler weather this weekend which will be nice!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

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