Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Well I’m back from my trip and have fished the last several days.  First day things got shuffled around big time on me.  We had that tropical storm graze by and that brought some heavy winds and rain while I was gone.  So it shuffled things up a bit.  My first day back, we only saw a handful of tarpon and no bait where I had done really well right before I left.  A rain storm then chased us away but it chased us too a bunch of bait so we caught that and looked in some other areas for tarpon.  We did find some but they were finicky, we managed 2, possibly 3, bites and hooked one fish we lost.  But that was about it for the day aside from sharks.  But day 2 I had the same crew and we fished a different area and after a bit of looking we found a good load of tarpon.  We ended up catching 5, so the guys made up for the day before!  The following day after that I had a different crew, and things again switched up a little.  We caught a tarpon right away where we had crushed them the day before, but that was it.  Saw a few more but they didn’t respond.  We only had a 6 hour trip, but we made one more move and looked in another area on the way home where I had not been in a while.  Sure enough after some hard looking we found more tarpon, and caught one more before it was time to go home.  So there are definitely fish around here in August, some days you make all the right moves and you may have phenomenal fishing.  Other days you may have to spend more time looking and fishing to get your bites.

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

We had great tarpon fishing the last couple days… figures now I have to go out of town!  But I think this could mean good things for August.  As these fish seemed settled in and were in the same area on different tides, several days in a row.  So August can still be good for tarpon most years it’s a little more hit & miss than July, but this year July was hit & miss and one thing I know from years past, it usually gets good and stable at some point in the summer so that may be yet to come.  I am booked a bit when I get back but mid august I have plenty of availability.

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

Got out the last couple of days and I’m going out of town until next week right now.  But it looks like some tarpon may have finally shown up and settled into the backcountry… All July had been a little tougher fishing – we’d been catching some tarpon, but almost every day had been a grind with just a handful of bites.  Nothing super consistent, fish moving around, lots of rain/wind… not making it easy.  Well a couple of days ago I was fishing a half day trip and at the end we decided to check an area to just catch something big, so I figured why not check one of my tarpon areas as I figured we could at least catch a shark if nothing else.  Well sure enough the tarpon were there!  We only fished for 20 minutes and caught a few sharks… but it was a good sign.  Anyways the last two days we got out there and the tarpon were still there, and earlier in the morning on different tidal stage.  So I think they’ve settled in.  We had good fishing catching three out of five yesterday, and three out of eight today!  I can’t promise anything, but I think we may have a much better August for tarpon than July.  The winds are finally laying out now after blowing 20 mph for 10 days or so.  And looks like it might get real calm next week when I get back.  So if you are wanting to tarpon fish, don’t be afraid to ask me.  Business is going to really slow down here now after the first week of August, so I’ll often have availability short notice.  I also will shoot you straight with regards to how good I think it’ll be – I don’t really care to go if I don’t think we’re going to catch them these days.  But there area also other opportunities, we’re just getting into the time of year where last year I found some really good size snook, redfish, and even black drum in the late summer/fall, so I’m interested to see what happens there too.  So I’m pretty busy through the first week of August, but starting the 10th I have some open days.  And September can be good too, so don’t be afraid to ask about that either.

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