Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with the Thompson crew today, Andy and his boys Derek and Conrad.  They’ve fished with me for several years and always come in the winter and summer.  I hadn’t been fishing since last week as I was out of town and had a few other days off, so a good 5 day break.   We caught mullet early on it was pretty easy nice to see plenty of bait around, even saw some later in the morning too.  Tarpon weren’t too plentiful but we did find some on our first stop.  We had the last trickle of incoming tide for about an hour.  Didn’t see much for tarpon rolling but saw one on our bottom machine.  Derek hooked up though unfortunately after a little run and one big jump she came unbuttoned, looked like a nice big fish close to 100 lbs.  After that the tide slowed way down, I was almost about to leave but we marked another fish.  I said let’s keep them out anyways.  Andy hooked up on the slack tide, again a bigger fish of 90 to 100 lbs.  We chased him and he put up a good fight, landed him and got some boatside pics.  After that the tide had turned and was falling.  We saw a few tarpon roll and one free jump, I moved over into that area and we marked a couple go by.  I thought for sure we’d have another shot, but nothing much happened we had a couple shark bites and got a big blacktip.  After that everything kind of seemed to dry up.  After that we did light tackle stuff, caught a few mangrove snappers but they were even hard to come by!  Getting to be that time of year where things can get tough on ya.  Anyways we had a half dozen for dinner, plus a few more sharks, so all in all not a bad day.  Back at it tomorrow and tarpon will likely be on the menu.  Tarpon fishing can still be good in August if you are looking to go!  1 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Got out with David and Brad for the last day today.  We had some leftover bait and we went to work straight away.  Last of the falling tide this morning and pretty calm with a light south breeze.  We didn’t see many tarpon where they had been the last few days..  A couple rollers, but didn’t have any bites aside from a shark and stingray.  We checked another neighboring channel, and there were a few fish in there.  We had to move around a couple times, but got in front of some and we hooked a nice 40 lber!  David landed him.  Great hookup ratio they caught every tarpon they hooked with me the last 3 days, 5 in total.  After that we caught a bunch of trout and a few pinfish to try for some snook.  Hit a few snook spots, the bugs were horrendous so we got pushed out on the shoreline.  We got 1 snook for Brad, and a few small nurse sharks, and then ended up cutting it short and coming home early at noon.  All in all another good day, and 3 great days of fishing for Brad and David.  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Got out with Brad and David again today.  We didn’t solely focus on tarpon and decided to mix things up a bit.  Early in the morning we tried to catch some pilchards, small live baits, for some snook and such.  Didn’t have much luck with that so we just went with some artificials.  We were able to catch a handful of snook and some nice trout fishing the beach shorelines.  Was hoping we’d see some tarpon off the beaches, but alas never even saw one!  We ran back and fished some of the channels where I’d been getting them the last few mornings.  Didn’t see a whole lot, but eventually a couple rolled and we got around them and Brad caught a nice 50 lb fish!  That was about all she wrote though, it was about 11:00 and we finished the day catching a few snappers for dinner.  Have these guys again tomorrow for the last day then I’m out of town through the weekend.  Tarpon will likely be on the menu at some point during the day!  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk