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Well today it got slick calm and that let the water temperatures rise fast.  These types of days are when the tarpon show up in droves after it’s been cold, especially this time of year.  I had Myron and Keith down from Minnesota, they wanted to get Myron his first tarpon.  I told the boys it looked like good conditions and that we might want to fish a 3/4 day as opposed to the half day we had scheduled, which would give us some extra time to run into the backcountry where I like to fish often.  They were good with it and so we made the run back there.  We ran deep into the glades and found some fish way back there in one of the areas a fly fishermen buddy of mine had said he saw them late the afternoon before.  They were there first thing and we set up.  We hooked a shark and then hooked a tarpon soon after… a great sign!  The tarpon didn’t stay on unfortunately, but a little bit later we got another one that did.  Keith caught it.  After that Myron jumped another one, just wasn’t having good luck keeping them on the hook.  Later on Keith hooked another but let Myron have it, so he got to catch his first tarpon and both the guys landed one – great!  We had a few more sharks and then the tide quit on us.  We hooked a big ray that we chased around for a while.  By the time we were done with that the tide had switched.  We had two baits left and we set back up where I saw some more fish showing.  We got another bite after a few minutes and Myron had another shot at a tarpon. Unfortunately though that one came off too, nothing he did terribly wrong just part of fishing!  But anyways they both got to catch one and it was solid action some of the best I’ve had this year.  Tomorrow could likely be the same but I have the day off.  I think tuesday and wednesday should be decent for tarpon, the winds will crank up and start swinging around though as we have another front coming in Wednesday night.  But it should be warm enough until then so it’s worth a shot.  Hopefully this will be the last cold front of the year but who knows it’s been a crazy March with 4 or 5 good fronts now!  2 for 5

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

Got out with Eric today for a half day tarpon fishing trip in Islamorada.  We had another major cold front the last few days, with temperatures dropping into the mid 50s for several nights in a row, and the water getting down into the low 60s in several places.  Yesterday it finally calmed down some and looks like it will remain that way through the weekend into early next week.  But again now looks like wednesday night we have another front coming in and thursday night it’s suppose to dip into the 50s again!  Just crazy cold weather for March after having such a hot february where it was 80 degrees every day.  Anyways Eric really wanted to try for a tarpon so I told him I thought we had a shot with it being calm and warming up, but that the water was still cold so it may be tough.  I went out early and caught bait with my buddy and we ended up getting a couple dozen mullet, enough to fish hard with.  We found some fish local in one of the areas I’ve been fishing frequently.  The water was about 67 to start with, we didn’t get much action at all.  Saw some fish rolling and moved around a little bit, eventually after about an hour and a half, we hooked a big tarpon!  It screamed off line and jumped like crazy.  We gave chase and were able to get all the way up on the wind-on leader for a technical catch.  However the fish got around one of the channel markers.  I had Eric back the drag off, and we tried going around the mark several different ways but just couldn’t get untangled.  The fish stayed on for a good minute or two afterwards, but eventually broke off!  The line must of got trapped in some hard barnacles or maybe something else down there….  Anyways as I say on my page a ‘technical release’ is where we get the wind-on leader into the tip of the rod, but the fish may still be 30 feet away from the boat.  This is how long your IGFA leaders are allowed to be, so for tournament fishing etc… it would still count as a caught fish.  But of course still doesn’t feel that way sometimes especially when you don’t really get to see the fish next to the boat.  Anyways we looked around in some of the other channels after that and didn’t see any other bodies of fish.  So we came back and had fish around us the rest of the time but didn’t get another tarpon bite.  Tough we did get a couple big nurse sharks and a cuda.  Anyways Eric was happy to have hooked one and had a good time, he said he’d be back hopefully at a later date and maybe when the fishing was a little better.  March can be really good, but with the cold weather we’ve been having lately it hasn’t made it easy.  I hope after this week it’ll stop!  I have a half day tomorrow morning that we may extend and I think I’ll be tarpon fishing again.  Hopefully the fish will treat us a little better.  Stay tuned!  1 for 1

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

Got out with Dan, Julie, and Sophie today down from Wisconsin.  They hadn’t been to the Keys before and had the opportunity to come.  We had planned on a full day excursion but we had some nasty weather about.  Prefrontal with some rain and lightning.  But it cleared up enough to make it out in the morning.  I caught bait early my first early morning mullet run this year.  We tried for tarpon to start and found quite a few locally.  We hooked a big one after 20 minutes or so.  She screamed off 150 yards of line and we gave chase.  Julie hooked it but she had a bit of a leg injury so was tough for her to maneuver around in the chair so we passed it off to Dan.  After the long run and a couple jumps she just dug in and we chased her around for over an hour.  We finally got her to subdue and got some good boat side pictures.  Nice 100 lb fish!  After that we set back up, the tide had changed and the fish seemed to have kind of dispersed at that point.  We did hook a cuda that we fought for a minute before cutting us off.  We moved out to another area and saw a few more tarpon.  But no more bites out of them though we did catch some big jack crevelle, and Sophie got an atlantic sharpnose shark.  She really wanted to catch a shark so mission accomplished!  We ran into the marina to use the bathroom and headed back out for some light tackle fishing after that.  Plenty of action on the patch reefs before the weather chased us back in as another frontal line approached.  But we got most of our day in at least.  Looks like it’ll be cooling down into the 50s the next three nights, so that will likely make the big tarpon fishing a little slow for the week.  Hopefully by next week they will start chewing again.  We got lucky yesterday and it was flat calm so things really had a chance to warm up fast.  I didn’t tarpon fish yesterday but I heard there were a few caught, but glad we gave it a go today.  1 for 1

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