Capt. Rick Stanczyk and Capt. Mike Bassett fished some of Rick's regulars down from NJ, Lee & Rob & Company for a florida keys charter. The radar looked like lots of rain around so we waited to leave and made it over to the flamingo everglades area with no problem, decided to stick to just half a day due to weather concerns. Stopped at our first spot, had the last of the falling tide for a good 1.5 hours and fishing was excellent! Lots of snappers for dinner, a few nice big black drum, a nice slot red, one small snook and jumped another one off, and some big jacks! Had a large bullshark eat a couple other fish, possibly nice reds or jacks. Shrimp with jigs did the trick, throwing them up current and letting them sink along the edges of the banks and trees. As the tide died at our spot everglades fishing islamorada we ran back towards home and hit a mud real quick. A few trout and ladyfish in there, and one pompano too! We stopped in one more area to try and get a few more snappers and the rain started to get us, and continued all the way home. Totally worth it for these guys though, they always have a great time fishing at Bud n' Mary's! Also nice to see a few of our winter time species starting to show up such as the pompano and black drum.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished with Lee and Rob again today on 10/9/11. Due to weather and conditions we decided to give stake up bonefishing a shot. The overcast rainy conditions usually turn the fish on especially on the ocean side. We had mostly in tide and high water, not the greatest conditions, but we gave it a try. We ended up catching 2 bonnet heads early on, and the rain started to pour with thunder. So we ducked in back to the marina and waited it out for 20 minutes, went back out with just a drizzle of rain. Lee ended up catching this nice 8-9 lb bonefish himself! After that we moved around since the small picker fish were eating the shrimps off as fast as you could put them out. The weather improved, though the tide died, and didn't start falling till we were about to go in. Though catching one islamorada bonefish is worth it these days! Capt. Lonny Shaw and Capt. Jim Willcox reported catching a couple each the day before as well.
