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
