Rick Stanczyk

Early June Tarpon Fishing Report in Islamorada 2024

Just wrapped up another 3 days of fishing here in islamorada for tarpon in June. We had a good week again, little breeze on Monday and Tuesday which made it comfortable at least, and Wednesday was fairly calm. Monday and Tuesday we stuck to the bridges as we’ve been doing the last couple of months. Still a decent number of fish around but you are having to put a little work in, and not always productive all through the day. The early mornings have been most consistently productive… both days we were able to get several bites in the first hour and land a handful of fish. Though after that initial rally once the sun is up it took some grinding. Monday we were able to get a few more bites after the initial early rally, and then at the end of the day once the tide started falling and water dirtied up we had more bites and caught a couple more tarpon. Very similar fishing on Tuesday though after that early morning rally, it was several hours without much of anything aside from a few nurse sharks, mutton snappers, and cudas. Then same thing the last hour and a half when the tide fell we had 4 more good bites and landed a couple more tarpon. I would say we had 8 tarpon bites Monday and 7 on Tuesday so that is still decent fishing. Wednesday we decided to mix it up and fished the bridges early which were good to us – we were able to get two nice tarpon up to the hand in the first hour and get some nice pictures. After that we ran into the backcountry as I heard some reports there was some tarpon showing up back there. This typically happens sometime in the summer as many of the large migrating fish move north. Some years it’s later in the summer but they were there really good now so that is great to see. We ended up catching 9 more tarpon for a total of 11 on the day, including 4 ‘double header’ hookups. It was just as good as fishing gets for tarpon. Now I can’t say what will happen next week but it was very good to see those numbers of fish, and typically now the fishing pressure is much less through the summer. So I think it’s going to be good for us later in june and july… just getting bait sometimes can become the tricky thing. But we still have a decent little school of bait we’ve been able to work to get us through and that should get better once we get more into summer and the mullet show up in the backcountry more. Back at it next week!

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

June 5, 2024 by Capt. Rick Stanczyk June Fishing Rick Stanczyk

End of May Tarpon Update

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

May 31, 2024 by Capt. Rick Stanczyk May Fishing Rick Stanczyk

3rd week of May Keys Tarpon Fishing Report

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