Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Tarpon fished again today with Nick, Craig, and Steven.  They fished me a couple days ago and we had landed a couple tarpon.  Nick still needed to land one.  Unfortunately it didn’t happen for us today.  I caught us some fresh lively bait first thing this morning.  Fishing was very slow I never saw anyone catch or even hook a fish all morning.  We tried several of the bridges, with boats around most of them.  Saw plenty of fish at the last two stops, though they were just non-responsive.  We ended up fishing up around town locally the last couple hours.  Saw a few fish in a channel and set up and we did finally get a bite, though he didn’t stay on for us we jumped him off.  Anyways tough fishing the water is still cold 75 degrees or so.  The el nino late winter is really killing us this spring with the day time tarpon bite, the fishing is just very slow.  Sometimes you get lucky and get in the right spot at the right time and may get a bite or two, but all the usual tricks that get them to respond are just not effective.  Anyways a day off tomorrow for some service work and then I have the same client for 3 days over the weekend.  Gonna try and talk him into going late at night as my schedule permits me to do it and I have him multiple days so I can adjust accordingly.  I don’t like fishing in the dark, but with the way it’s been I am going to do what I have to do.  We did have good luck the last several nights I fished last week!  0 for 1

Well more wind and chilliness today we had a stiff northeast breeze blowing 25 mph today.  Fishing was tough we got rained on trying to catch bait I ended up buying some from the bait boys.  We saw quite a few fish early in the channel where we found them yesterday, though no bites today.  We saw some fish around the bridges, and a handful were caught, though only about 5 boats out of 15 or so had any bites.  We moved to another bridge and had a few cheap shots.  Fish coming up and busting or flashing the bait, but not committing to eating it!  We had one fish scale a bait though I wouldn’t even consider it a bite.  Very frustrating I had very nice customers and would of loved to get them a fish.  Anyways tough day worked very hard and moved around a lot trying to find some hungry fish, but they wouldn’t respond to us.  First day in a while I haven’t even had a bite, but it happens!  0 for 0

Fished this evening with return customer Frank and his family.  I was a little worried after the slow fishing today but things were a little more active.  It started off slow but as the tide turned and it got a little closer to sunset things turned on around 6:00.  We had several cheap shots and jumped off a fish on the bottom rod.  Caught a big nurse shark.  Then finally got a tarpon to eat a live bait and Frank caught a nice 50 lb tarpon.  Very happy to get a fish tonight I didn’t see anyone else get a bite and only hear of one other boat that caught one.  1 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

4/17/16 – I had the day off and fished this evening.  In the morning I went out and caught some bait that was pretty good but had to work to find them.  The wind was howling today it started blowing 25-30 mph out of the east after being nice and calm the day before.  On the evening we stayed local and tried the channels we saw fish just about everywhere but tough to get them to respond.  We didn’t have any bites first stop, caught a big nurse shark.  Second stop we did have a fish up and he flashed on the bait and grabbed the mullet and scaled it, but never got the hook.  After that a cuda ate us off on the bottom rod.  We moved again and had a couple tarpon almost free jump in the boat, but no bites out of them.  Caught a few more sharks and by 7:45 my anglers were ready to call it a night and grab dinner.  I offered to even stay later I really don’t like striking out, but it happens and unfortunately this year it’s been happening a little more often than I like but fishing has been a little tougher this April.  0 for 1

4/18/16 – I had Steve, Nick, and Craig from the UK.  Steve fished with me last year.  We got on a nice big tarpon early for Craig he landed about a 120 lb fish in the first couple hours!  After that we made our way around the bridges and the tarpon were biting pretty good.  About 10 boats there and I think just about all of them caught at least one fish.  We hooked another one right when we got there and Steve landed a nice 70 lb fish.  After that Nick had a couple bites but we missed them and a few more cheap shots.  When the tide quit we tried another bridge and then the local channels around islamorada, however we never had any more tarpon action.  It seemed to really die down I talked to several people and sounded like the morning bite was it I saw one other fish caught in the channel in the afternoons.  Anyways happy to get two especially this year!  2 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk