I haven’t posted in a while so just wanted to touch base with all my readers! Just got back from my honeymoon we had a great time cruising the Mediterranean. Though not back to the grind. September as usual was a slow month for business though there was still some good fishing to be had. I was only here a couple weeks between the end of my wedding and my honeymoon, so only got out on the water a couple days and a couple more got rained out. But I heard end of september/early october there was some great tarpon fishing with some of the beginning of the fall bait run occurring. This time of year loads of mullet, pilchards, minnows, and other baits can get pushed down with the right conditions – usually some of the first ‘cool fronts’ of the year. These northeast/north winds blow bait down the coastline and before the temperature really starts to drop, the tarpon and other fish follow and can really go crazy. We are often fishing the mainland everglades area and it can be an unbelievable sight! Imagine thousands of tarpon from 10 to 200 lbs free jumping and busting baits which are all around you. Yes this can happen and it does regularly this time of year. Anyways I was out yesterday and unfortunately the wind swung around southeast and this condition was not occurring, we only saw a handful of tarpon and did not have any action out of them but did catch some nice snook. Anyways tarpon are still definitely a possibility and on the right day it can be as good as it ever does. So if your looking to tarpon fish, coming up are the last few weeks that you stand a decent shot. Once we get into November it is usually getting chillier and the fish are not as active and many leave all together. Though later fall/winter is a great time of year for redfish, drum, snook, trout, mackerel, and more which I am doing until it warms up again for the 2015 tarpon season! About half my October is booked up business is picking up so shoot me an email or call and let’s talk about fishing!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
9/13/14 September Islamorada Tarpon Fishing Report
Well I’m back took a couple weeks off for the wedding and been home the last week but things really died while I was gone. Fun fished one day but not for tarpon. But today finally got back in the mix after getting cancelled yesterday due to weather. We had an overcast day today with rain offshore though we never got it in the bay which was nice, kept things very cool. We caught plenty of fresh mullet first thing and ran off the beaches of the mainland. Did not see any tarpon out there we tried a couple spots, not even a shark bite! We did catch a few goliath groupers off a deep hole, but not much else for life. We ended up catching some big mangrove snappers for lunch and then tarpon fished some of the channels over near flamingo. We got lucky and mid day we hooked a nice 60 lb fish that gave us some nice jumps and we leadered and released. That was it though no other bites, finished the day trying to catch a snook which we had a couple shots but they beat us into the mangroves. Though we did pull another nice juvenile grouper out of the trees. So tarpon are still possible to catch I will be available for charter for another 10 days or so, I only have a couple days booked so if your looking to go islamorada tarpon fishing in september drop me a line!
8/16/14 Florida Keys August Tarpon Fishing Report
Well I can’t get a break people keep wanting to go fishing and I’m just can’t say no especially when the fishing has been this consistent and good! For tarpon fishing islamorada in august this is excellent! Had Tom and Kim from Alabama today they ran into me at the dock while cleaning a few fish yesterday. He wanted to put Kim on a tarpon and wouldn’t mind one himself. So we did just that, ran in the back caught a few baits. Baits were there but not real easy but we wrangled up 30 or so. Had the last of the incoming water I fished a channel for the first 45 minutes since we’d have slack water further out for a while. No bites just some sharks. Then we ran out off the beach and caught last little bit of the change of the tide. More sharks, then once the water started going out we saw a few tarpon free jump. Finally hooked one and Tom landed it a nice 45 lb fish. Then Kim got hers a 30 lber that was very acrobatic. Then we jumped another one off. And a bunch of blacktips in between to keep us busy! Ran out of bait and then came home.
