July 2017

Got out with David and his sons Tanner and Hunter over from Texas today.  Tarpon was on the agenda and we focused on that early.  Caught some bait on the way out it was a little easier than yesterday, but not as much as I normally like to see with the nice incoming tide we had.  But we got enough.  No tarpon early on I tried the area we were yesterday morning, never saw any rollers but did see a few busts and thought I had marked a few, but no bite.  We did get a few sharks and a ray.  After an hour or so and a couple moves, the tide quit so we ran out to the west to try.  Got right on top of a big herd of tarpon and we were able to actually fish away from the little shark craziness which was nice.  It was funny the sharks were nearby but we found a small patch of water where they just weren’t really messing with us, and the tarpon were there, so that made life easy for a little while.  The boys each caught a nice tarpon, dad unfortunately jumped both of his off.  After that though the tarpon disappeared, though there were still some out in the sharky area though they were too hard to get past.  After that we checked a few wrecks for permit, but no love, and we called it a day.  2 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Got out with Dave and Donna today, Dave is from Florida but hadn’t caught a tarpon yet.  We were able to get a good toss on some fresh mullet early on.  With the incoming tides now the morning bait should be a bit easier for the week.  We found a few tarpon early on and caught the tide change.  Ended up hooking one soon but unfortunately the line got caught in the bottom and he pulled off.  When the tide started going we caught a few sharks, then Dave hooked a nice 70 lb fish that we landed!  Good jumps and nice fight.  We tried a bit longer but no more luck.  Looked in some other nearby areas without much luck.  We ran out west to try the mainland areas, saw a big mud with a few fish busting in it and a lot of bait.  But never had a bite but did get a shark.  Then the last couple hours we found a ton of fish where they had been the last few times I was, along with a TON of little sharks again.  It was very hard to get through the sharks, we kept moving and trying but it was shark city.  We tried throwing artificials and even some crabs but no love, but we finally did get another tarpon on our mullet right before it was time to go.  Got him to the boat but he jumped off before we could get pics, but a technical release.  All in all a fun day and Dave was glad to get his bucket list fish.  2 for 3

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Got out with Eugene and his son Colton today for a full day.  They were down from Maryland area and Colton had just gotten out of the airforce.  We planned to do kind of a mixed bag day but tarpon were on the agenda.  We caught a handful of baits this morning, with the falling tides in the AM bait hasn’t been real easy.  Being Saturday there were a lot of boats out on the water too, unfortunately a few already fishing in the spots where I’d been catching bait.  Luckily I had a few good packs of frozen extras to supplement.  We checked out where the area where the tarpon had been last week and the other day, but didn’t see much activity and since they didn’t bite there the other day I said lets move on.  We stopped to hang the chum bag and caught some live pilchards as well as a few trout on our light tackle while doing that.  We hit the area where we had found tarpon yesterday afternoon and still had the morning falling tide.  We caught a tarpon right away and then the sharks ate us up.  We tried moving around a little, but no more tarpon action and the tide soon died out.  We hit a few snook spots, but not much was happening with them.  Funny because we had such good bait, but just not many snook around right now even the guys I’ve talked to who do that a lot more haven’t been finding many.  We decided to try the tarpon again when the tide switched.  We got in front of a hungry pack and had a good little rally, landing one more tarpon and then we jumped off 3 more.  Even had a couple bites on our live baits which was fun but unfortunately they came unbuttoned.  The sharks eventually moved in and tore us up, again we tried moving around a little bite no more luck.  Didn’t seem to be quite as many tarpon as the other day.  We finished the day hitting a couple more snook spots, and managed to catch Colton one finally in the last stop.  All in all a fun day, really had to work very hard for a handful of fish, but sometimes that is what it takes.  Hopefully the little sharks move on soon.  I have a half day tomorrow just action fishing, and Monday back to the tarpon game.  We will have incoming tides very early which should make the bait catching much easier for the coming week, thankfully!  2 for 5

Capt. Rick Stanczyk