October Fishing

Got out for a few days of tarpon fishing last week with Dody and Dan. They booked me for 3 days and fortunately were here for a week so we were able to slide days around according to the weather. We had some terrible rain and wind mid-week on Wednesday and Thursday. But we fished Monday on the 28th and had a gorgeous day that day. It was slick calm and we found lots of tarpon around. Dody started the day with a large snook off a tarpon bait which was a nice surprise. We then caught a couple tarpon and jumped a couple others all in that same spot which was a fun way to start. Eventually that shut off and we moved further offshore and found another group of happy tarpon and caught 3 more I think and jumped a couple others. So quite an awesome day getting 5 tarpon in the 20 to 50 lb range. We fished Tuesday the next day too as it looked like the wind would be favorable early and the weather was spotty but we hoped it would give us a window to get out which it did. We got a little rain but nothing too bad. Dan got a big bull shark to start the day. We didn’t do quite as well but we did find a good group of tarpon again though they weren’t quite as happy as the day before. We worked at it and got a few bites out of the tarpon but they were being good at jumping off the hook. Dody got one eventually though. Then we also got a nice lemon shark and a goliath grouper. I think one other tarpon bite we missed so just landed one on the day but we hooked 4 or 5 I think. Then we had a couple days off that were pretty nasty as mentioned. But we got out again Friday and it wasn’t too bad. The wind was calmer in the backcountry which was nice. We found tarpon early on and jumped a few fish right away. Eventually we got one on that stayed hooked and landed it. Checked a few other areas for tarpon as it dried up on us but we didn’t see too much. Came back to where we started and we did jump off one more tarpon there. Then on the way back we saw several tarpon busting on some bait and putting on a show. Sure enough we pulled in and put some baits out and we hooked one in about 10 minutes. Nice 50 lb fish for Dody again. So not too bad with another couple tarpon for us.

So we’ve got a decent tarpon bite going on and should stay pretty good through October. I think it may even get a little better as we continue to get fall pushes of bait and that may last well into November – we’ll see! But if you want to catch tarpon it’s not a bad time to give it a try now!

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

We’re well into October and we’ve been having the fall bait run going on for the last few weeks here.  Tarpon fishing hasn’t been red hot as it sometimes can get in October when we get those conditions but it’s been fair I’ll say.  We had more numbers of tarpon around I feel in July and the later summer it’s been smaller groups though when you get in them you can still have decent fishing.  Right now if you get in the areas with fish you can get some good windows but it’s often short lived and when conditions go south fishing can deteriorate quickly.  But the last few trips I’ve had in the last couple of weeks we’ve had a tarpon bite or two about every day we’ve tried.  Last week I had a regular customer out Randy and his family and we had one day we caught 3 tarpon and had a few more bites.  Then the last three days I’ve fished we had action with baby tarpon in the creeks one day with several bites and landed one.  Yesterday we focused more on slightly larger tarpon and jumped one in the morning, and then caught one in the afternoon.  Today we were fishing for larger snook with my dad and ran into a good group of tarpon and ended up catching one on pinfish.  We did see some more tarpon activity further up the coast where the mullet run was going on but we didn’t end up messing with them there.  We have a good hard wind coming this weekend then next week it’s lightening up but will stay northerly but wont’ get real cold.  That should continue to push bait down and fire up some tarpon that are here.  This may continue right into early November obviously no guarantees but as long as water temps stay in the high 70s/80s tarpon are a possibility!

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