12/15/13 December key largo backcountry fishing report

We’ve been tearing up the spanish mackerel lately in the gulf.  Fishing has been very good and they’ve been eating bare shiny jigs most days, or others just tipping them with shrimp work.  The falling tide has been incredible fishing… a block of chum and your good to go!  There has been a few cobias out further, with lots of big bull sharks.  The blacktips are inside with the mackerels too if you want to pull on something big.  In the everglades, the snook fishing has been red hot.  The other day we released over a dozen nice snook.  Live pilchards have worked best for them.  Not a lot of big snook, but many in the 3-6 lb range – a blast on light tackle!  Redfish fishing has been fair with some black drum and sheepshead starting to mix in.  It hasn’t been very cold so we haven’t had the big schools of fish move into the deeper creeks and canals we normally fish a lot this time of year.  But it’s still been a good bet around many other areas.  If your wanting to fish in key largo this december let me know, I have open days and christmas week is almost all filled up so book today!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk