June 2019

Got out early and made a long run today.  We fished areas I hadn’t really been before.  We had looked in a few other on the way but saw no tarpon.  These were areas I had done well at last year but hadn’t really found them there good yet this year.  So we decided to push a little further.  I know tarpon did get in these spots, and with it slicking out I figured we could just run through and look and if we didn’t see anything we’d just backtrack and go to Plan B.  Well we got lucky and ran into a big wad of fish, rolling 5 at a time!  We set up and within 30 seconds I think we had hooked up!  We missed him but then a few minutes later we were on again and actually had a double header hookup!  Lost one, but we landed the other.  After that the craziness slowed down but still a good amount of fish rolling in the near distance.  We ended up catching 4 altogether and missed 2 others, and all before 9:30 AM.  After that we decided to go try for snook and other stuff.  Unfortunately a lot of boats in the areas I fished yesterday for snook, so we had to jump around but we picked a few fish also some redfish and trout as well.  So we ended up getting 3 backcountry SLAMS which was cool too.  All in all awesome day and always fun to discover new stuff!  That’s what the Contender Bay Boat is for getting to new far off areas, I’m sure I’ll be back there again.  4 for 6

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

Lots of fun and lots of laughs with Jim, Scott, Gary, and Bill! We focused on tarpon most of the day. We found fish just about everywhere we went though they really were not biting on the falling tide. We got in several good scenarios with fish rolling around and going by us, and seemed like any minute it’d happen but just didn’t come to fruition. We waited for the tide change in our last area, and made one last stop on some fish and finally we hooked a nice 40 lber we landed! After that we moved again and had a big shark on and while battling that we hooked a nice 60 lber that we got! It was all smiles we really had to work for them but we made both bites count. Some times you have to live and die by the sword when you are all in for tarpon, and hopefully the persistence will pay off. Luckily we had plenty of sharks to keep us busy in between.  2 for 2

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

Got out with Scott and Jim today for a full day.  They really wanted tarpon and I told them it’d been hit or miss lately.  We decided to give it a couple hours early and then do some other stuff.  We didn’t see much early, don’t think we ever even for sure saw a tarpon.  Falling tide and a southwest wind, water wasn’t real pretty anywhere.  We checked several spots and fished in a couple of them.  A few sharks and that was it.  But luckily we were able to catch some good snook later in the day and some redfish too, so we ended up having a good day.  Some tarpon were caught later in the day on the incoming tide.   Sounds like that’s been a little better bet, unfortunately though right now that’s almost near the end of the fishing day.  Anyways, have the same crew tomorrow we may try some other spots early and then maybe again in the afternoon.  Seems you really have to put your time in right now and be OK with striking out if you really want that tarpon, but like i’ve been saying sometimes that’s tough when you know you can go catch other stuff.  But we’ll see what they wanna do tomorrow!  0 for 0

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