Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Had Nathan and Jeff today for a full day. Weather looked iffy but ended up not being too bad at all. Bit of a stiff more southerly breeze but not too bad. We were after tarpon and decided to stay local today with the possible weather. The tarpon bite was decent we had to work at it but we had action all throughout the day. Caught 1 fish early on and jumped another off, and missed a few other bites in the first couple hours. We moved around and hooked up again but unfortunately the fish came unbuttoned. Lots of medium sized fish seemingly 40 to 60 lbers. We did catch a nice cubera snapper which was cool. At the end of the day we had a couple more shots, missing one bite and then catching about a 90 lb tarpon to finish. Weather got nasty this evening and looks like a west wind tomorrow. Tarpon fishing will likely still be best around town so I think we will be sticking to that tomorrow again.  2 for 6

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

Fun day with Dan and the boys down from Minnesota. Dan often dishes with me earlier in the spring but decided to shoot for April this year. Of course the weather patterns are different and we had nice calm weather earlier in February and March and are now getting the hard southeasterlies and some late fronts, but you can never predict it. Anyways we has good fishing, getting two tarpon to the boat and a third one to the leader before he popped off. Also a few big blacktip sharks. After that we caught our limit of Mangrove snappers for dinner. We then had a couple more hours to play with so we tried bonefish fishing. Caught a bunch of bonnetheads in one area that looked very lively, surprised no bones. Tried a couple other spots but not a sniff there. Anyways still an overall great day despite some windy conditions. I’ll be at it again tomorrow in search of silver!  3 for 3

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

Worked hard for 1 today. Had return customer Carl and his buddy Larry. We found some fish early on to start. Looked really good too with a fair number showing. We set up and after 30 minutes or so had a player. Nice fish around 100 lbs for Larry, his first tarpon. Good battle almost 45 minutes. Afterwards though, someone flipped the switch and the tarpon for the most part seemed to have vanished. We worked around and saw a handful more but no bites. Caught a few sharks afterwards though. We checked a few more areas and did not see a whole lot. For the time being seems like the bridges may be a better bet for those after strictly tarpon. If the winds lay down though the backcountry should get better. Unfortunately doesn’t look like that is happening until possibly the end of the week for a couple days. Also looks like another weak front mid week and possibly some rain and hard west wind. Not what we like in April! 1 for 1

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