Rick Stanczyk

June is near half way over and the tarpon fishing has been pretty good for us the last week.  Summer time mode is on but we had good conditions overall this week as far as wind and weather went.  We were on the full moon as of today I believe.  Earlier this week I fished on Monday with Chris and his buddies.  We had a nice day with conditions again, mostly incoming tide which should have been favorable.  We found a decent amount of tarpon in the backcountry but they were not cooperating too well – maybe it was coming on to the full moon?  We grinded hard but mostly just had shark bites.  I moved around in several areas and we had tarpon in all of them that we looked.  Not visually seeing a ton but marking them on the sonar.  Finally near the end of the day we were in a pack of fish and I marked one off the bow (as we were fishing tide into the wind and the live sonar was facing forward towards our baits).  Sure enough we marked a fish nosing into the bottom and I believe actually eating our bait, and a few seconds later he went airborne!  Luckily we hooked the fish well and landed her.

Yesterday I had Gavin and Max out.  Bait was difficult to come up with but luckily Capt. Trent hooked me up as he found some mullet the afternoon before in the backcountry.  We left out early and did about the same routine as I had done a few days earlier.  But today the tarpon were happier!  We hooked a couple after about 45 minutes of fishing in the first place we stopped.  Landed one and jumped the other off while we were fighting that one.  But a good catch.  Then we had several large lemon sharks and a bull shark.  Moved around a few times and got into another pack of tarpon a little bit later.  Sure enough we near hooked another double header and landed both fish.  It was high fives all around and some good picture takers.  After that things settled down.  I ran further up the beach and saw a few more free jumpers which we tried to get lined up on but no love.  But good to see there were definitely a good number of fish out there.  I ran further and fished an area where I had caught some over slot snook a few weeks back and I knew there was tarpon there too.  Low and behold we ended up marking a nice pack of fish and sure enough we caught 3 snook that were all near 20 lbs!  Then we got a nice 70 lb tarpon at the end too!  Just a magical day where things all came together.

So things are coming together nicely for a strong summer I feel like.  Resident tarpon fishing should be a good bet now through October, and heck I feel like it’s going to be much better and more productive than our seasonal fishing was this year as March/April was tough fishing often struggling for a bite or two a day.  I’ll be out of town for a couple weeks now but I’ve just opened some days in July for myself personally if anyone wants to go.  I’m offering my off season rates so book while you can before it gets filled up.  Capt. Trent and Capt. Steve will be available too.  Hope to get you out there!

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

We’re into June and it’s definitely summer time!  We just had a day of torrential rain I think we got about 6 months worth of rain in 24 hours.  I know they said Plantation Key had 8 inches which is wild.  We needed it though and hopefully it will be a good thing for the fishing overall.  So how’s the tarpon fishing been?  Well it’s definitely improved overall compared to the slower April we had.  I’ve been finding some good fish in the normal backcountry areas we fish and we had luck with them this week after the day of crazy rain, and a few days last week as well.  Haven’t had a whole lot of opportuntities for good pictures as they’ve been a lot of smaller 15-30 lb fish, and just not staying on the hook well or jumping off next to the boat.  But we had good action last week catching 3 for 6 one day, 1 for 3 another day, and the last day we only tried for the last hour and didn’t get a bite but we had plenty of action with sharks and snook earlier in the day.  I definitely was mixing it up all those days and we had decent snook fishing in the mornings and did the tarpon for the latter part of the day.  This past week I only fished Wednesday as we got rained out Tuesday and I had some cancellations, but we had the right tides much earlier in the day this week so we went out.  The weather stayed nice for us and it was a little windy but we got on a good tarpon bite and landed 1 right off the bat.  After that they didn’t wanna stay on the hook for us but we put another 5 in the air I think and also caught plenty of sharks including some hammers, lemons, and bulls.  Capt. Stephen also reported decent fishing around the bridges landing a nice big fish and hooking another 4 or 5 as well.  So tarpon fishing locally is still an option and the backcountry is looking like it’ll be decent earlier in the summer as well.  Bait is fairly difficult to get right now there is still one commercial guy catching them and we’re getting them when we can.  But that always gets harder this time of year.  If you want to get a trip booked give us a shout we have openings!  I’ll be out of town June 14 until a little after the 4th of July, but then I’ll be fishing some again the 2nd week of July.  Hope to get you out there!

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