May Fishing

Been going hard at it and we’ve had another great week of fishing here in Islamorada for tarpon!  Monday and Tuesday I had Steve visiting from GA we fished locally for an hour or so whilst waiting for a little fresh bait.  We ended up hooking a nice fish in the channels that unfortunately got wrapped up funny on the motor as it was slack tide and going under the boat.  Got away but an exciting bite in the dark!  We got our bait and then headed to the bridges.  Caught the tide just changing and things were a little slow to start.  We jumped around for a couple hours giving it our best and once the tide started rolling they bit.  We caught a couple nice fish within an hour of each other, then had a couple back to back bites we missed one and got the last one.  Making for 3 fish on the day but unfortunately no picture takers or face grabs.  Tuesday I had the same guys and we decided to try the backcountry because I’d heard there was good fishing back there Monday and we were hoping to get hands on one which sometimes is easier back there as you can fish heavier gear often and also not worry about breaking them off in the bridges.  We didn’t see much early at all where the hot bite was the day before.  We checked some other spots and actually saw a ton of tarpon in one of them, though the little black tip sharks ate us alive and the tarpon really just did not want to bite.  But we had packs of 15-20 swimming by the boat lots of little guys in the 20 lb range.  We fished elsewhere and actually saw a handful of fish in two other areas we tried and I was sure we’d get bit but it never really happened for us.  Though we had plenty of shark action.  Oh well should’ve stuck to the bridges!  But at least we’d had some tarpon there the day before.  Wednesday back to the bridges we had good fishing with John and Bill landing 3 tarpon and hooking another 3 we missed or lost.  They kind of bit all through both tides and even had a bite on the slack tide.  People often ask what tide is best or want to time the tides, and I say truthfully it can be good on either or and even better on the slack tide sometimes!  And it changes day to day.  So it’s really impossible to time the ‘best tides’ for fishing for tarpon.  Though you’ll usually have an idea of it a few days out based on what happened the day before, but again it can change.  Thursday I had Keith and his wife Kristin visiting from the west coast.  Keith was here several years ago trying for tarpon with another guide and did not get one so it was on his bucket list.  Well we filled the bucket and then some today he landed 5 tarpon including a couple big girls.  No face grabs they were very much wanting to break us off today we had several fish doing figure 8s in the bridge, and making 180 u-turns under the boat.  But we got 5 of them up on the wind-on leader next to the boat but just couldn’t stop them for a picture.  Great fishing indeed!  Friday had Keith again and we whomped ’em again, getting leader on another 5 tarpon though again no face grabs.  We called it a day at 11:30 so got to come home a little early even and Keith was super stoked to have had two phenomenal days of fishing.

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

Well we’re into middle of May already can you believe it?  Summer is definitely here now the winds seemed to lay down the last week or so and it’s gotten HOT!  I’ve been on a pretty hot tarpon streak lately thankfully too after one of the toughest Aprils I’ve ever had.  We’re still finding some fish deep in the backcountry and it’s been good to us.  We’ve had to leave early to get there and it’s a bit of a run but it’s paid off.  I had Jon and Dave for 3 days last week.  Day 1 on Monday we got rained out in the AM but they asked if we could fish in the afternoon and I was able to make it happen.  We stayed local though actually and it was a nice weather window.  We caught a big 100 lb fish right off the bat in the local channels, she fought us hard for an hour and we got her boatside but she never gave up and eventually wrapped us up in the bridge.  Then we jumped around and found a few more fish but they were uncooperative, but the last 15 minutes of the trip we had a few rolling around us and boom finally hooked another!  A really wild fish that screamed out line and almost spooled us.  Big fish too and looked like we were in for another long battle but we actually rolled this fish over in about 20 minutes which was cool and got good pictures.  Great trip.  Day 2 we ran deep in the backcountry like I was talking about and we had good action landing multiple tarpon and hooking plenty more.  Day 3 we gave the tarpon a break and went snook fishing which was pretty good for us too.  Thursday and Friday I had Gerald Stuart and his group from las vegas.  We did the deep backcountry routine and it was really good.  Thursday we landed 4 fish and had a few more in the air.  Gerald caught a big one close to 100 lbs that we put on the wall with Grays Taxidermy.  Then yesterday on Friday I had others from his group and we had similar fishing, jumping several small fish early on and then the guys each landed a tarpon including another big 120 lber and a few 30 lbers.  Action all day we caught the last fish right before it was time to go in.  So that deep backcountry option has been working, I’ve not fished back there much the last couple of years as we had tremendous bridge fishing but this year I’ve gone back to it.  That is usually good through early June and then we’ll just see what’s goin on then.  Sometimes the rest of the backcountry areas fill in with fish around flamingo, we’ll just have to see.  There have been some fish in another area of the backcountry I know so maybe those will fill in a little more.  Capt. Steve and Capt. Trent have been getting a few fish around the bridges still on the half day trips and evening trips and even full days, though often it’s a good bet to break it up and try some other stuff. As mentioned snook fishing is decent now and I know they’ve been getting some big snappers and other things too.  Steve has had a couple of permit in the last week too.  June is around the corner so if you are getting out of school and wanting to book a fishing trip give us a shout!

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

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