Latest Fishing Reports - Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

2025 Tarpon Season Outlook

Here you can read our latest fishing reports. I try to keep this section updated regularly when we are tarpon fishing consistently. Though remember in the off season we may not be fishing as much or we may be targeting other things.

We’re into August and boy has the summer been a complete turnaround on the tarpon fishing front compared to the early season this year! March/April was one of the toughest early season bites I’ve seen in recent years. Hard to say what it was but the fish were just not happy and the numbers weren’t what we normally expect to see. Though by late April I found some fish in the backcountry and haven’t looked back. We’ve had pretty good success back there the last few months, and especially in July the fishing has been red hot! Lately though the local tarpon bite has been good too especially on the evening half day trips. The team at Islamorada Tarpon Fishing is ready to take you give us a shout!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
305-747-6903
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

July 14, 2015 by Capt. Rick Stanczyk Uncategorized

10/23/2025 October Tarpon Fishing in the Florida Keys

We’re well into October and we’ve been having the fall bait run going on for the last few weeks here. Tarpon fishing hasn’t been red hot as it sometimes can get in October when we get those conditions but it’s been fair I’ll say. We had more numbers of tarpon around I feel in July and the later summer it’s been smaller groups though when you get in them you can still have decent fishing. Right now if you get in the areas with fish you can get some good windows but it’s often short lived and when conditions go south fishing can deteriorate quickly. But the last few trips I’ve had in the last couple of weeks we’ve had a tarpon bite or two about every day we’ve tried. Last week I had a regular customer out Randy and his family and we had one day we caught 3 tarpon and had a few more bites. Then the last three days I’ve fished we had action with baby tarpon in the creeks one day with several bites and landed one. Yesterday we focused more on slightly larger tarpon and jumped one in the morning, and then caught one in the afternoon. Today we were fishing for larger snook with my dad and ran into a good group of tarpon and ended up catching one on pinfish. We did see some more tarpon activity further up the coast where the mullet run was going on but we didn’t end up messing with them there. We have a good hard wind coming this weekend then next week it’s lightening up but will stay northerly but wont’ get real cold. That should continue to push bait down and fire up some tarpon that are here. This may continue right into early November obviously no guarantees but as long as water temps stay in the high 70s/80s tarpon are a possibility!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina

October 23, 2025 by Capt. Rick Stanczyk October Fishing Rick Stanczyk

9/9/2025 September Tarpon update!

Got out last week with Mike and Barbara for some tarpon action. We actually decided to try and focus more on snook which I’ve been having some luck lately with some of the big ones. So we did that early on and weren’t really hitting the snook so great – we missed one bite and then hooked one that we got to the boat but pulled the hook before we could net it! I just decided to put the tarpon rods out while we were sitting there as I’ve caught tarpon just sitting on that spot before while snook fishing. Sure enough we ended up going 3 for 3 on little tarpon so it made our day for sure! I wasn’t seeing too many otherwise though we had marked a handful while we were driving around there so it was a welcome surprise. Barbara ended up catching another juvenile tarpon while we were throwing pinfish in the creeks for snook so it was just a tarpon kind of day for us while we were really going for snook! Other than that I have not done a whole lot of tarpon fishing as mentioned we’ve been getting good shots on those big snook though when conditions are right. However if you are looking to go tarpon fishing it is definitely still a good possibility. Baits been fairly consistent to get and while I haven’t seen big hordes of fish like we were seeing a month ago and in July, the ones that are around are happy and as we get into October we’ll likely see another good push of them as it starts to cool off up north and we get the fall bait run going on. Otherwise we’ve had nice weather overall a few showers and rain storms that have been finding us off & on, but we’ve been able to fish around them every time and only gotten wet a couple times. So far storms have held off hopefully that continues we have another couple months to go though.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina

September 16, 2025 by Capt. Rick Stanczyk Rick Stanczyk September Fishing

8/5/2025 Evening Tarpon fishing in the Florida Keys in August

Capt. Trent has been on a tear lately with the tarpon on the evening trips! Summer time yields some great opportunities for resident fish and right now they are literally just minutes away from the dock. Very little pressure in July and August especially in that evening fishing window you’re often the only boat out there. Spawning is over and the fish are packing in calories and much less finicky as they sometimes can be months earlier. Not that that is always a guarantee but seems to be the case as of late! Also another plus is often taking the pressure of finding bait out of the equation as we are able to source bait at the dock that is available almost every day from the other boats coming in. So we had a last minute trip last night that was booked the day before. Capt. Trent got them out at 4:00 pm and they did the tarpon thing and it was game on from the get-go. All throughout the year but especially in July and August we use a ‘dead bait’ approach to catching tarpon. Usually a chunk of some kind of meat on the hook and we either drift those baits to them or set them out with a sliding sinker. We fish known areas where tarpon congregate but with the warm, calm summer waters we often are looking for them rolling on the surface or with our fish finders. So on the trip they ended up catching six tarpon and jumped off a couple more! Medium to larger size fish too in the 50 to 100 lb range. Now this fishery can be good all the way through October. If you’re thinking about it drop me an email and we can discuss.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina