Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out for 3 days with return client Rob and his buddies.  Tarpon was the main focus.  I had time to catch bait in the evening before our 3 days of fishing, which was good because bait has been a little tough to catch in the mornings in the backcountry when we normally catch it.  Sometimes it’s available sometimes not, depends on the tides.  But we had great fishing on day 1 with 7 or 8 tarpon bites and landing 2.  We did catch a permit in the gulf later in the day as we had nice calm weather to run out there.  The following day though the big school of fish was gone from that area.  We spent an hour or so looking around and finally got into a small group of them and put a couple of them in the air but did not land one.  After that we never had another bite all day we checked a few other areas and found a handful of fish but no response, though we did catch a couple big sawfish which was cool as well as some sharks.  Day 3 we were totally out of our mullet and tried to catch them in the morning but didn’t have any luck.  Saw some bait around but just hard to get a throw on.  So we went fishing with our pinfish and found a few tarpon around early.  After an hour or so of drifting and casting we did hook either a small tarpon or a large snook but unfortunately after a minute or so a big bull shark ate it.  I was hesitant to put a lot of pressure on the fish as if it was a tarpon usually you need to go a little easy on them.  But we did finish the day catching a couple permit in the gulf as conditions were good for that.

So right now tarpon fishing is as it has been most of the summer – hit & miss.  If you have the bait it can be worthwhile but you may spend a lot of time looking around for fish.  If you get lucky and find a big school you may have a banner day.  I’m happy to take anglers who want to focus on tarpon though if it’s up to me, I’m usually recommending people to be open to other things and maybe just trying tarpon for a portion of the day for the time being.

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

Well August is nearing it’s end here.  Had a busy week last week and now September is upon us and is usually the slowest month for business here with storm season being in full swing plus school starting.  But not necessarily a bad time to fish, actually quite the opposite it can often be a fantastic month for fishing!  The last week here we had pretty good fishing.  The first couple days we did not really focus on tarpon but did happen to catch several.  3 small juveniles while snook fishing on Monday, and then Tuesday we caught 3 as well one juvenile, then a couple larger ones one on a pinfish and one on a mullet – funny 3 different baits and all produced tarpon (the first one ate pilchards which we were using for snook).  Then Thursday we focused on tarpon the whole morning with the bigger rods and actually wasn’t quite as easy – sometimes it feels like when you go all in one them its hard, and when you are just not so focused on them sometimes they come easier!  But we did have a couple bites and jumped off a large 100 lber, and at the end of the trip caught a nice 40-50 lber.  But so it goes and needless to say there are tarpon still around here in the Islamorada area.  A few reports from today I heard said that a few new groups of fish were out & about, so maybe this bodes well for September!  Anyways as I said I am not super busy so if you are wanting to come down & fish I’ll likely have days available with shorter notice here for the next month or so.  And I’ll shoot you straight if fishing seems like it’s not going to be good, I’m just as happy to stay home too!  So drop me a line and make sure to sign up to my mailing list for when I open up my bookings for 2022, they’ll likely fill up fast.

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

I’ve still been getting out a fair bit, but not every day as we’re entering more ‘off season’ mode here.  Tarpon fishing has still been hit & miss we never really got any consistent ‘red hot’ summer fishing though there has been fish around and if you put time in most days you get a few shots.  But as of late I’ve been doing more snook fishing and other things, and just giving the tarpon a try for a little bit.  I did have a couple of my last few trips yield big results too… yesterday we landed 4 tarpon in the last spot of the day after a great morning of snook fishing.  Kind of unexpected but we just happened into them!  And earlier this month I had a couple fishing with me who said they really wanted tarpon and of course I obliged, we gave it a shot first thing after not having a bite the previous two trips that we tried.  But sure enough they were happy on this day and we landed 4 in the morning on that trip.  So needless to say tarpon is still a definite possibility and will be until winter time and it starts to get cold.  But when I’m not super confident in it I may recommend doing other things and not dedicated a ton of time to it, so then you still get to catch a variety of things and have a good day of fishing regardless. Though all that being said, we’ve had years where September and October are sometimes some of the best tarpon fishing we get all year.  While I don’t think that will be the case this year (Late March through early June were tremendous for tarpon, just summer was a little slower than normal) it still may get better than it is now and worth dedicated the whole trip to again.  But time will tell.  Anyways if you are wanting to go fishing drop me a line, I have a little more short notice availability these days and I’m not pushing to fish super hard anyways.  So I’ll shoot you straight as to what’s biting and do my best to make my anglers happy!

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