Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Eugene and his son Colton today for a full day.  They were down from Maryland area and Colton had just gotten out of the airforce.  We planned to do kind of a mixed bag day but tarpon were on the agenda.  We caught a handful of baits this morning, with the falling tides in the AM bait hasn’t been real easy.  Being Saturday there were a lot of boats out on the water too, unfortunately a few already fishing in the spots where I’d been catching bait.  Luckily I had a few good packs of frozen extras to supplement.  We checked out where the area where the tarpon had been last week and the other day, but didn’t see much activity and since they didn’t bite there the other day I said lets move on.  We stopped to hang the chum bag and caught some live pilchards as well as a few trout on our light tackle while doing that.  We hit the area where we had found tarpon yesterday afternoon and still had the morning falling tide.  We caught a tarpon right away and then the sharks ate us up.  We tried moving around a little, but no more tarpon action and the tide soon died out.  We hit a few snook spots, but not much was happening with them.  Funny because we had such good bait, but just not many snook around right now even the guys I’ve talked to who do that a lot more haven’t been finding many.  We decided to try the tarpon again when the tide switched.  We got in front of a hungry pack and had a good little rally, landing one more tarpon and then we jumped off 3 more.  Even had a couple bites on our live baits which was fun but unfortunately they came unbuttoned.  The sharks eventually moved in and tore us up, again we tried moving around a little bite no more luck.  Didn’t seem to be quite as many tarpon as the other day.  We finished the day hitting a couple more snook spots, and managed to catch Colton one finally in the last stop.  All in all a fun day, really had to work very hard for a handful of fish, but sometimes that is what it takes.  Hopefully the little sharks move on soon.  I have a half day tomorrow just action fishing, and Monday back to the tarpon game.  We will have incoming tides very early which should make the bait catching much easier for the coming week, thankfully!  2 for 5

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Lance and his sons Black and Grant today and tarpon was on their list.  We caught a little bit of bait early and had some leftovers from a couple days ago.  Got lucky to get one throw and get 2 dozen mullet, we made a few more throws and came up empty!  Bait is a little tough on the mornings with falling tide right now… but thankfully I think Monday we will have some incoming for a few days and that’s been much better for bait catching.  Anyways the tarpon were not very responsive early on we found a good batch where they had been the last few days, but no bites we moved a few times and only got some bluefish and jacks.  We went up into a channel nearby and found a few more in there, though another boat had gotten lined up on them before us so we watched them get a couple bites but we couldn’t get anything going.  I decided to move on figuring it wasn’t gonna happen for us there so we ran out along the mainland to catch the start of the incoming tide.  The sharks have been horrendous out there, so I was hoping there’d be enough tarpon to make it worth while.  Luckily there was and we went through every bait we had dealing with all the little sharks, but we ended up landing two tarpon and jumping a few others off.  It seemed like every time we got a bite, you had to move to get away from the sharks.  So that’s what we did and it was pretty good fishing but it was a lot of work, though sometimes that is part of it!  Anyways Lance caught both fish I wish we could’ve got the boys each on one, but at least they had a few shots too.  Didn’t do much wrong just didn’t want to stay buttoned for us.  Oh well thats fishing and everyone had a great time.  Hopefully the fish cooperate tomorrow!  2 for 6

P.S. We normally do not lift tarpon out of the water for pictures, though if they are under 40 inches like the one pictures on the right, you are allowed to for a quick release picture.  We try to always support the belly and not hang them by their gills, not let them flop around on the deck too much wiping off slime, and make sure to revive them a little in the water if necessary.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Back to the grind after a nice 4th of july weekend getaway.  Got out with Tapani Hennrikson over from Finland today for some tarpon fishing.  We caught some bait early and I had a little bit of a stash from before I left that stayed in fairly good shape since somebody helped me keep them tendered.  We checked a couple spots where the tarpon were before I left and didn’t see much, caught a nice lemon shark.  We moved out to check one last area and found the mother load.  Fish were busting and splashing, and I marked several on the bottom machine.  We had about an hour of tide and we went to work.  Tapani hooked the first couple and landed them.  We then caught a couple more on the dead stick on the rod holder, even got the last bite on the slack tide.  All in all we landed four out of four bites, and then we finished the day trying to get a ‘mud marlin’ for Tapani.  We caught several big sharks and finally got the mud marlin at the end of the day, only saw his tail before he cut us off.  Hopefully the fish will stay put, I got cancelled tomorrow so I am available if anyone wants to go last minute!  4 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk