October 2017

Got out with Steve and Mario for a half day of fishing in Islamorda.  We were after some fish for dinner but I told the boys I had heard there were a few baby tarpon around some of our mangrove islands as well as snappers.  Boy did we find ’em!  We landed 3 tarpon and jumped off a couple others, in 3 different spots!  Also got a snook, various snappers, and a lemon shark as well as a nurse shark.  The place was alive!  It was actually harder getting our legal size snapper then it was hooking into tarpon surprisingly!  Well I guess the rumors I heard were true.  Not sure how long it’ll last as we have a cold front hitting tonight, though it won’t get crazy cold.  But it’d be a nice thing to have these fish around for the next few weeks makes life easy on our short half day trips!  3 for 5

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

10/21/17 – Got out on a last minute trip with Greg and Brandy down from Michigan.  They swordfished the day before with my brother and got beat up since the winds had started howling 20 knots.  So we gave backcountry a try today.  There buddies also fished with Capt. John Johansen who I was able to wrangle up late last night to go.  We worked hard and caught some pilchards and mullet on our way out to be ready for anything.  We caught a big jack crevelle on the way over to the everglades out of a mullet mud which was fun, Greg got it on an artificial.  Once in the glades we found some baby tarpon.  Was expecting some snook but no luck with them there but we did get brandy a nice 15 lb tarpon!  We then tried a few other snook spots without much luck, but the last stop we did finally get one… Brandy again!  We then gave the big rods a shot and caught two big lemon sharks, and pulled on a few other ones that cut us off.  Not a ton of fish but at least some quality ones!

10/22/17 – Today I had Phillip and Andre down from Miami who are students living here from Switzerland.  They wanted to try for tarpon and with the weather conditions the best bet has been to stick in the protected mainland areas for them.  I did have some mullet that I caught a few days earlier but we ended up not even using them.  We did get on a good snook bite early, no little tarpon at this spot this time but we caught probably 10 snooks and lost 10 more I’d say.  We then gave the tarpon a try and found a few in one of the canals.  We had one bite we didn’t know what it was, then Phillip had a for sure tarpon bite.   Unfortunately he came unbuttoned.  Andre got a nice little juvenile cubera snapper which was a unique catch as well.  Afer that we headed home we only had a 3/4 day scheduled, but I was happy with the fishing even though we didn’t get a tarpon the snooks made the day for sure. Not booked for the next few days then I have some trips starting again next Thursday through the weekend.  If anyone wants to go, give me a shout!

1 for 1 and 0 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with my dad and our friend Ron Modra today for some fun fishing.  We had a load of pilchards and headed out into the backcountry.  The first stop we found some nice smaller tarpon busting and rolling a little bit.  We were trying for snook but they weren’t responding well so we put our baits further back on the surface for some tarpon.  After getting them chummed up a little we caught a double header!  Unfortunately we lost them both boatside on the leaders before we could get them in the net.  The little guys are the hardest to keep on for pictures, i swear!  We then jumped one more fish, and then Ron caught one that we did get into the net for some pictures!  We caught one more nice size snook, and then checked some other areas out without much luck.  Did see a ton of finger mullet further up the coast though, but not much activity as far as things busting and feeding on them.  We did hit one more good spot where we found some nice snook and got a redfish too for a SLAM on the way home.  Fun day!  3 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing