Friday, January 22, 2016

The Fishing Capital of the World

Islamorada is called "The Fishing Capital of the World".  A very profound statement.  Yet pretty darn accurate!  There are not many places in the world where you can fish for more then a few different species all in one location and any time of the year!  In Islamorada we have over 40 different species of saltwater fish that you can target on any given day.
 
The winter weather has kicked in and with it we are experiencing low tides and cooler water temperatures.  This means concentrations of fish in the channels, Island Moats, the deeper waters in the Gulf and Oceanside patch reefs. 
 
We put a great catch together on Saturday.  Phil Masser and wife Kelly experienced a fantastic multi-species catch.  Kelly didn't fish but she was an excited commentator and observer.  We started in the Gulf with many great size mangrove snapper.  From there we ran the trap lines for tripletail and boated 4 that were all just too short to keep.  We continued out to an old wreck in the Gulf and hammered some awesome fish.  We caught black grouper, gag grouper, mangrove snapper, mutton snapper, spanish mackerel, pompano, cobia, jack crevalle, blue runners and ladyfish.  After that we headed up to the mainland and hit another awesome spot where we spanked the redfish, black drum and boated one very nice speckled sea trout.  That's over a dozen different species, and I'm sure I missed a few, all in one day.  There are many places in the world where you don't catch a dozen of one species in one day!   We caught more then 70 fish and had a blast!
 
The cold weather and wind kicked up on Sunday and the bite was slow for a few days.  Wednesday and Thursday proved to be very good.  The mangrove snapper bite was "out of control".  All the snapper you wanted.  They were eating shrimp and biting so good we even caught several on a bare jig.  That's right, a bare jig with no bait on it!  I guess they were hungry?  The snook were smackin and snackin too.  We landed 5 nice snook yesterday afternoon.  They were inhaling our live baits (pinfish and shrimp).
 
The next few months should prove to be very productive for many of the winter species like black drum, sheepshead and spanish mackerel along with ALL the other species we have in our Fishing Capital of the World!!
 
Thanks for reading, head on down to the Keys for some awesome catching!
 
Captain Steve Murray
Phone: (305) 393-1641
 
 



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