Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Fun day with Mac and his dad David! Bit of a north breeze early cooled things off a hair. But a weird condition for summer for sure. Bait was tough again, we got lucky and marked some on the electronics that we threw and caught and had enough to fish with. Tarpon went quite as thick as yesterday but we saw a few. We set up and gave it some time, catching a few sharks. Right when we were about to leave though, boom we hooked a 75 lber! He fought well and they took turns battling him. Got the fish to roll over on the leader, but as we tried to stop him for a picture he went under the boat and broke off. Sometimes they dont cooperate for this pics. Next we moved and caught a big redfish which was a nice surprise, and a few more sharks. We made a big move after that. Saw a few more tarpon and set up, no bites but we did get some more sharks and a nice snook close to 20 lbs! Wow! After that we played with some tripletail catching a good handful. Tried one other spot for something nice but no luck there. We caught a couple. More tripletails then called it a day!  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Fun day with Jeff and Katie visiting from the Pacific Northwest. Tarpon was on the agenda so we gave it a go. Bait was a little tough but made it happen. Fished a different pattern as we didn’t see a lot later on the day yesterday. But today we found a big group of fish at day break ! Within 30 seconds we were on and Jeff caught a nice 30 lb tarpon. After that I thought it was going to be easy living, but they clammed up and it got tough! A few fish hung around but the catfish and sharks got bad, and soon it seemed to dry up. We checked a couple other nearby areas but didn’t see much. We worked out way to another area and found some more tarpon. Katie jumped one, and then a few more sharks. Jeff hooked up again to a 40 lber. This fish went nuts, we got it boatside and it ended up jumping in with us. Luckily we got it out quickly without much damage. Things seemed to quiet down again and made one more move. We got a crack on a last tarpon, this one was a nice 75 lber! Katie fought it well and we got it to the boat for a few pics before heading on home. Nice day with great people! Back at it tomorrow.  3 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Fished a full day today and had Alan visiting from Louisiana to try and catch his first tarpon.  He’d tried a few times but hadn’t had any luck yet.  I’ve been off the last couple days, we had a lot of weather over those two days with some major storms blowing through Friday, and some again on Saturday and even early this morning too.  So I wasn’t sure what was going to be up with the fishing.  We caught bait early, it was pretty tough to get.  We checked multiple areas and just didn’t see a whole lot.  Finally we found a few in one spot, and after a few blank throws, we finally caught about 18 or so which was goo enough.  We ran back to where I was fishing last week with high hopes of a lot of tarpon being there.  Though today it was slim pickings.  We didn’t see a whole lot, maybe just a handful.  We set up and caught a few sharks, then we did hook up a nice 100 lb tarpon that Alan landed!  It ended up being the only one we got, but at least it was a big one probably largest I’ve had in the last month.  After that though things went quiet, we moved a couple times where we had seen fish, but seemed to be not much when we set up just some more sharks.  Eventually some more weather came through but dissipated.  We worked our way through the backcountry channels, fishing 3 more spots and looking in a couple others, but I don’t think we ever for sure saw another tarpon today.  I really think the weather over the last couple days must’ve pushed them around, as the last day I fished we had seen tons of fish.  I think it will get better as the weather stabilizes.  Looks like we have slick calm conditions possibly tomorrow, which should be good for them.  We’ll see what happens!  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing