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Got out with Terry today for a half day trip.  The weather didn’t look great some big showers around.  But we ventured out anyhow.  Caught some bait early and went around the bridges.  Found a bunch of fish, but surprisingly they weren’t very interested in feeding.  We had a couple blow ups on our baits in the first hour, but no actual bite, and they didn’t come back after the first attempt.  Very strange!  It looked just perfect… overcast, nice incoming tide, and fresh bait, you can’t really ask for anything more.  Anyways the rain started to pour and we moved around.  The fish seemed to spread out and we found them closer to the bridge.  After another move we had a few rolling behind us and finally got one up boiling on a bait.  Finally he ate and Terry was hooked up to a nice 60 lb tarpon!  He put up a good fight with some nice jumps, took us through the bridge and into the bay.  We landed him and got some release photos.  Great fish and was glad to get one.  A few other boats shows up but I didn’t see anyone else hook up.  Just hard to beleive I’m not sure why the fish are so tough to get to bite as of late.  Anyhow after that we went and caught a few snappers by the bridge for lunch and headed on home.  Terry was thrilled to land a silver king!  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out today with Jim and Bob for a half day of tarpon fishing in Islamorada.  The weather looked like it may be an issue but the morning would not be a problem to get in.  We caught some bait early on and headed out.  Found a load of fish at one of the bridges.  We had to move around a bit but there was a short window where they were active.  Quite a few cheap shots and misses but Jim hooked up a nice 65 lb fish.  Most the boats there probably 6 or so hooked up in that window.  We had to chase him through the bridge and cut a few fishermens lines that were fishing from the bridge, always hate the weekend when we must fish around town there, but luckily we got the fish!  After that we set back up and had a fish up chasing a mullet immediately, but he didn’t eat and then the tide slowed and it seemed like things just turned off.  We tried at another bridge and saw some fish but no love, and then tried up near home for the last 45 minutes and saw a bunch of fish there too but no action out of them either.  Glad we were where we needed to be when the gettin’ was good!  Full day tomorrow I’ll be running out into the backcountry as long as the weather allows it, rain is in the forecast for sure but today really didn’t end up being too bad even though it was suppose to.  Can never trust the weather man!  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Gave the tarpon a break yesterday but fished for them some today.  I had John and Jan two repeat clients from last year, who had me yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  We caught some pilchards to start our day and had some other bait leftover from yesterday.  We tried for some snook and smaller tarpon around a few islands but no luck with that to start the day.  We found a few medium size tarpon and sharks in one of the channels, had a couple bites out of the tarpon but they didn’t stay buttoned unfortunately.  We then ran and tried another channel, and found a good number of fish pushing in with the hard incoming tide.  We set up and caught a big ray, then a blacktip, then finally got a nice 85 lb tarpon!  After that we caught a few snook around one of the islands and called it a day.  Nice to see some tarpon in a couple different backcountry spots, hopefully they will be filling in for the summer now and fishing will get a little more consistent back there.  1 for 3

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing