May Fishing

We’re into May and wanted to give another tarpon fishing update here for Islamorada.  Unfortunately April closed out as being one of the worst Aprils I’d experienced tarpon fishing here in Islamorada.  We did not ever get any numbers of fish showing up at ch.2  or ch. 5 bridges, and our local channels had handful of resident fish that we were able to pick away at.  But even those got pretty wise and it was really difficult getting bites out of them.  Long key bridge had some fish and still does but not the numbers we normally see, and those ones too are very finicky.  I fished there a half dozen times and had hooked a handful of fish but had not even landed one yet.  However the last 10 days or so I found a good group of fish in the backcountry we’ve been having a lot of luck with.  Getting more my usual numbers of bites and catches for this time of year at least!  It’s not a huge school of fish and I’m not sure how much longer they’ll stick around but I’m leaving them alone for a few days and fingers crosses they’ll be happy again for me next week.  But we’ve been getting anywhere from 6 to 10 bites a day back there.  It’s taken some commitment and leaving the dock a little earlier than usual but it’s paid off handsomely.  I don’t know if I’ll be doing any more bridge fishing this season we’ll see what next week brings but in some years past I’m already starting to phase out of doing it in another couple weeks here anyways as sometimes it’s starting to fizzle out after a good run.  Though again this year it just never seemed to get started really.  I did hear there was a good load of fish down in Key West so we’ll see if they end up making there way up this way who knows.  But I’m going to be keeping my eyes open in the backcountry and hoping to find some more cooperative fish back there and maybe even mixing in some other types of fishing especially as we get into June.  Anyways there have been a few more fish biting in the evenings and Capt. Trent and Capt. Steve do have some more short notice evening availability if anyone is looking to go.  I’ll be opening my June calender shortly but if you want a date with myself feel free to reach out and I can pencil you in tenatively.  I’m also hoping July and the rest of summer will be good with backcountry tarpon fishing, I’m sure it won’t be any tougher than April was at least!  Will have another update after next week.

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

Got out last week for a couple of days… we fished Monday and Tuesday.  It’s gotten much more feeling like summer as of late… water temps are up in the 88 degree range and the water is getting that green summer time look.  But still a decent number of tarpon around not as many as a few weeks ago.  But we are seeing some fish closer to Islamorada which is nice.  On Monday I had Thomas and crew and we had a decent day catching four tarpon, three of which we got boatside for pictures they were nice and cooperative for that!  We got a couple early on right off the bat.  Then we had some misses and it slowed down a little.  We ended up jumping a couple fish again before moving up closer towards Islamorad to fish.  Then we finished the day with a couple more tarpon a nice 30 lber and then a large 100 lber!  Great way to end the day.  On Tuesday I had Peter and crew and fishing was very similar.  We had one nice 80 lb fish right off  the bat that dragged us for over a mile!  We had good pressure on the fish too but it was just hooked right in the top lip and hard to get to roll over or cooperate… but we finally did with some patience and proper pressure.  After that we had another fish we got leader on that broke us off in the bridge.  Similar as the previous day things slowed down a little but we had a few more bites, missing some and losing one in the bridge again.  Then we made the same move up to Islamorada when the tide changed and once again we ended up catching another small fish and then a large fish.  Only the one in the morning was cooperative for the boatside pics and leader releases on the rest.  But both days I think 7 or 8 bites so still decent fishing for the end of May.

I’ll be back at it this upcoming week starting in June.  Bait has still been around though not as prevalent as it was.  June can get tricky with bait sometimes but I’m hoping the little honey hole we have keeps holding some mullet for a few more weeks!  I’m booked out for June though Capt. Trent and Capt. Steve have some dates available.  Capt. Steve actually got a SLAM today – tarpon, bonefish, and permit, with some of my oldest customers which was pretty cool.  Trent has also had good fishing they had lots of tarpon bites a couple of days ago and caught some muttons and groupers as well.

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

Just wrapped up my three days of fishing for this week.  On Monday 5/20/25 I had Ray down with his buddy Scott.  We nearly got weathered out… massive thunderstorms starting blowing up around  5 AM and even knocked power out in Islamorada for a couple of hours.  We had a little window to get out around 8 AM after waiting and watching until 6 AM.  We decided to go for it and made the best of it.  We had to hide under the bridges for a little bit to avoid some showers but after that we were able to get good fishing in.  We ended up getting one tarpon for Ray and then losing another one that wrapped us up in some structure under the bridge.  After that things died down as the tide quit.  We  found a few fish in some other areas and cudas ate us up.  Finally the rain opened up a little and we were able to fish another bridge and found some more fish in the last hour and got one more tarpon.  None cooperative for pics but glad to have gotten a couple on a tough condition day.

Yesterday the weather was much nicer but maybe a little too nice!  It got slick calm and we saw tons of tarpon around the big bridge.  I wasn’t able to get there the day before due to weather so i was hoping the fish would be nice and happy since they had the previous day off!  Tarpon were rolling everywhere but they weren’t responding super great.  We were able to catch one after a few moves early on for Brian that we got good pictures of.  Then we went several hours without another bite!  Looked good and we were in fish the whole time but again they were being finicky.  Finally we got one more before the tide quit thankfully.  After that we ran back up near Islamorada and fished one of the other bridges.  We grinded and fished a couple more hours, and were able to catch one more tarpon and jumped off another.  So all in all not a bad day by any means to get 3 tarpon but we did have to work hard for our 4 bites.

Today I had Jack and Brandon and I was readying myself for it to be a grind again.  Though we had a tiny bit of east breeze and that might’ve made all the difference!   Today the tarpon pulled us out of the boat I think we had over 10 bites and ‘landed’ 6 or so.  We got one nice one up for pictures of Jack.  Brandon had several nearly rolled over but they kept popping off when we tried to really get them submitted.  We even had one fish drag us up near conch key into a small canal that luckily he turned and swam out of because we couldn’t of chased him up in there!  Anyways good to have a big number day again after a few slower days.

Tarpon fishing is still in full swing here in May.  Decent numbers of fish around and I think we’ll have good fishing into June.  I don’t have much left for ‘season’ but summer time is still a great time to fish in July so give me a shout if you want to get out then.  Of course Capt. Stephen and Capt. Trent have availability in June as well still especially if you want to do an evening tarpon trip or something like that.

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