Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Carl and Jeff today for a quick 3/4 day trip.  We blacked out the cooler with nice mullet yesterday… nice thing this time of year I’m not fishing every day, so I often try to catch bait on my days off so I’m well prepared.  The fall bait run has started and at least this week there have been plenty of mullet around so that has been easy.  We looked in a few spots early for tarpon and actually didn’t see a whole lot.  So we went snook fishing for an hour and crushed the snook catching about 3 dozen or so.  Then we went looking for more tarpon and checked another area I hadn’t fished in the last few weeks for them but was good earlier this month.  Sure enough there were some fish there, we set up and after about 20 minutes or so, Carl was hooked up to a nice 50 lb tarpon.  After that the boys were getting a little hungry we fished another 20 minutes but we headed back in about 30 minutes early.  Probably could’ve scratched another bite out of we really wanted to but they were plenty happy.  Anyways October is right around the corner and can still be a great month for tarpon.  I’ve got some open days throughout the month but I will say it’s filling in fairly quickly.  It’s truly one of my favorite months of the year to fish as fall isn’t quite so busy and with the bait runs and weather changes, it’s often very productive.  Give me a shout if you are interested in going out!

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

Well I haven’t been fishing a whole lot as we’re into September, our slowest month of the year for business.   But I did get out the last couple of days and the first day we tarpon fished for a bit of it.  Found a massive school of fish in one of the usual backcountry haunts…  We ended up catching three in about an hour – very good fishing!  Including one nice size 60ish lber.  Got some great video footage I put together which you can watch below, also including the rest of my fishing report from the second day.  Right now not much going on until the end of this week, and I have a few days open at the end of the month.  The beginning of October is also fairly open for me though I start getting a bit busiest mid-october.  So if you are wanting to come on down, it’s a great time to fish!  I especially love October as we often get the fall bait run going and it can be some of the best fishing of the year.

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

Well it’s officially off season now here in the Keys.  Fishing is still really good but not a whole lot of people fishing this time of year as it’s just not too busy.  The threat of storms and school starting back keeps the crowds away.  So it’s often a great time to come enjoy our piece of paradise if you want to have it a little more to yourself.  Right now there are a few tropical systems brewing out there but we have yet  to see if they’ll affect us.  I always work with people this time of year so if you make a reservation and it looks to be in jeopardy due to weather, don’t worry we can reschedule, cancel, whatever we need to do.

Now on to the fishing… the tarpon bite has been pretty good the last couple of days.  I’ve had tarpon action on every trip with exception to one.  It got a little slower right around the full moon, we still managed a couple fish one day.  The day after we only tried for about 45 minutes and didn’t get a bite but went on to other stuff.  But the last two days were good we caught 4 out of 6 two days ago, and 1 out of 4 yesterday.  We also caught 2 very large snook one day while tarpon fishing, and another decently large one the day after that which was really cool.  We will have a nice stretch of weather coming up next week as it’s been fairly windy here this week for this time of year… so it might get even better!

Give me a shout if you are looking to schedule a trip.  I have plenty of days open and will probably still offer a few discounted trips to those who ask ahead of time.  But I’ve almost got enough days booked this month that I’ll probably stop offering them soon!

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