Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Well back in town and got back out on the water today finally.  While I was gone I heard we had a mild cold front which had made the tarpon not quite as happy as they were when I left.  The water is still plenty warm enough for them to be around and catch ’em, but you had to be patient waiting for your bites etc…  We loaded up on bait early this morning and ran into the backcountry to fish for them.  The sharks were thick we caught lots of blacktips, some nice size ones and plenty of little ones.  I moved around a bit and finally saw some rolling fish which I set up on with my trolling motor.  We had a couple bites real quick, jumped one fish off right away and then hooked another we fought for a few minutes but unfortunately lost him.  Wind was out of the north though it was warm, that north wind can really be trouble when fishing for tarpon.  We caught plenty of small stuff on the light rods for a while and then gave it another hour for the tarpon before heading in at another channel.  Sharks were even worse here, we did see a few free jumping tarpon but they weren’t eating at least not before the sharks could get ahold of the bait.  Anyways fishing should improve the next few days but we are getting another front it looks like Friday.  That is always a possibility early in the tarpon season – they really don’t like the cold weather or northerly winds.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Today I had Sergio & company again for a day of tarpon fishing.  We caught bait this morning and went into the backcountry.  My buddies boat broke down that was taking the other half of his group, so they all piled on my boat.  We had a tarpon on within 5 minutes and saw fish rolling everywhere, very happy!  Next we waited for a little bit, some shark bites, and then we hooked a double header tarpon!  We caught them and continued fishing, catching 3 more nice tarpon.  All fish were 60-90 lbs.  We came home early when the incoming tide quit around 12:30, only a 6 hour trip and 6 nice tarpon.  Of course I’m leaving on vacation now that the fish are happy but I’ll be back in a week to beat up on them some.  March is getting VERY busy but I may have some evenings available if your looking to tarpon fish, let me know!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Had a full day and stuck around town tarpon fishing all day.  Fellow captain Ben Ekblom had the other part of our party so we fished nearby each other.  Early in the morning we had to wait a bit for action but after an hour or so we had a big tarpon crash our mullet, unfortunately we didn’t hook him.  Minutes later he was behind Capt. Bens boat and they hooked up and fought him for over an hour.  Not much other action there, we went and caught some more fresh bait mullet and set up in a different channel.  Right away we had 2 tarpon bites we missed, but finally on the 3rd we hooked a nice 60 lb fish that we landed.  Capt. Ben reported similar action down near channel 5 bridge, they missed a couple fish and then hooked and landed one.  After the tide quit and started in we didn’t have much other action with tarpon, though we did get into a good blacktip shark bite for the last 45 minutes before calling it a day.  So we went 1 for 4 with the tarpons, with best action being in the morning with the falling tide – though the previous week or so the afternoon incoming tide had been good.  Funny how things change!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk