July 2019

Great 3/4 day with Jimmy and Carsten from Denmark. We stuck to where I’ve been finding tarpon the last week or so, since we didn’t see much up the road yesterday. Bait was a little easier for us. Found ’em early on with the last of the incoming tide, but they didn’t want to respond! We didn’t even have a shark bite… Kind of strange. We fished hard and after an hour the tide quit. We did look around in another area as the wind laid out nicely while we waited for a tide change but didn’t see much. We ran back to where we started after the tide switched and right away saw a few tarpon showing some signs. We set up and soon Jimmy jumped one. A few minutes later we got a nice one to stick… Big 80 lber! Carsten caught him and did a great job fighting it. After that we set back up, and a little later he got another 40 lber. Jimmy got a couple sharks too. We jumped one more tarpon off after that. The tripletails popped up nicely too on the out tode and we caught 4 or 5, including a nice 12 lber! Back home for lunch, back at it tomorrow!  2 for 4

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

Back on the water after a couple days off. Had Kim and Rosie visiting from Australia. We had a variety of bait and tried to catch a bit more. Winds were still blustery out of the southeast. Bait was a little difficult but we were able to get a few fresh ones. We made a long run up the coast as I had some good report on fish up there, but unfortunately we didn’t see much for tarpon life. We tried several spots hoping for some snooks and reds, but not a whole lot of cooperation aside from catfish! We did catch a couple though and Rosie got a black drum too. We made our way back to some of the areas where id found tarpon last week. No bites in the first stop but we did get a few sharks including a hammerhead. Next stop we did see some signs of tarpon. We did some moving around and managed to get Rosie a nice 40 lb tarpon. We had some more shark action. Really had to work at the tarpon though to get a response. I gave it an extra half hour since we got a little bit of a late start, and Rosie did end up jumping a couple more tarpon unfortunately they didn’t stay on the hook for us. Anyways definitely a bit of a struggle today for us but any day you land a tarpon is a good one in my book!  1 for 3

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

Fun day 2 with Chris and company today. We went after the silver king again. Bait was a little easier this AM, back on an incoming tide cycle early which has been easier on bait catching early. We found tarpon in the same area, got in a good spot and we jumped a couple soon after then got one to stick for Tiffany. A few sharks after that and we moved. Got Chris one after that a nice 40lb tarpon. After that we picked up and checked an area where we found some tarpon yesterday. Got into a big school of them rolling 10 at a time! Sometimes though it isn’t always a good thing to see quite that many. Luckily we hooked up almost instantly and AJ got his tarpon! After that though the sharks are us alive and the poons seemed to settle down and quite showing, I think the bulk of them had moved on. We rain elsewhere, and found some big balls of bait and caught a bit more. Saw a few tripletail that we tried to mess with but as soon as we got set up we really didn’t see anymore and it was overcast. We tried a nearby spot and got a nice goliath grouper. Then the sun came out and we caught a few tripletails on the way home. Off for a couple days and back at it Sunday!  3 for 5

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