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Got out with Tony and Sam today for a full day trip.  A cold front started to come in yesterday and today it was blowing hard north this morning.  But the temperatures didn’t really cool down yet, that will be tonight.  So the water was warm and I figured we would have a shot at getting a tarpon.  With all the wind and how tough the fishing has been out in the backcountry for them, we opted to stay close to home.  We got on a good tarpon bite early, and had 4 fish bite but only kept one of them on.  Tony released his first tarpon and biggest fish ever, a 65 lber!  Nice job!  After that we were out of bait so we went to catch some more which was fairly easy.  We then hit the patch reefs and caught a few various snapper and some hogfish.  Then we tried around the bridges for tarpon.  Saw a bunch but the tide was just starting out, so the water was clear and the fish were staying under the bridge.  Being a saturday there were about 30 people fishing from the bridge so it got frustrating real quick.  We did see a big hammerhead with a bunch of barracuda following him which was cool.  We ran back and tried our morning tarpon spot again.  Saw a fish roll and we set up.  No more tarpon for us but Sam got a big 300 lb bull shark!  Really cool fish and crazy to see them so close to home like that.  I had heard reports of them being caught the last few days.  After that we called it a day.  Tonight the temps will drop some and that might slow the tarpon down a little bit, plus Thursday is another reinforcing cold front.  But it’ll warm back up at some point and at least give the tarpon a little break they’ve had a very early start this year.  1 for 4

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

Got out with Dave and Frank again for day two today.  Yesterday we had really good fishing but today the conditions definitely were changing.  A cold front is coming in, though the temperatures hadn’t dropped but the winds did swing around from southeast to northwest.  It wasn’t cranking though maybe 5-10 mph in the morning then picked up to 15 mph on the way home.  We made the long run to where we had caught the tarpon the last couple days.  Today though they up and disappeared!  That’s part of the gamble with that though… it can be absolutely epic or it can be listening to the crickets for hours.  We did manage to find one group of fish though but we didn’t get a bite out of them.  Though our sister boat that was fishing the other part of the party did catch one there at least.  We had a few sharks and rays too.  We tried a channel on the way home in the bay but no signs of life there, we fished it hard for 45 minutes and then called it a day.  With the temperatures dropping and the tarpon fishing being as fickle as it is, might give it a break for a few days until it gets nice again.  0 for 0

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

Got out for a full day with Frank and Dave, return customers of mine.  They also had some buddies fishing with fellow Capt. Jeff Beeler.  We stuck together for our day today and decided to go after some tarpon.  We caught bait early on, the bait was nice and easy considering how calm it was.  Loaded up and headed back to where we went yesterday.  A good ride close to 2 hours, but it was worth it again!  We found the tarpon all over there.  Fishing was a little better today actually, we didn’t have to move around and we ended up getting 4 tarpon bites.  Almost had a double header but Daves got off the hook after it bit right away!  But the boys each landed a 50 lb tarpon, and then Frank had another 80 or 90 lber that we got to the boat several times, but we broke him off on the leader trying to get him to jump for good footage, but a good release none the less.  We also caught a few sharks including a couple larger blacktips which was cool.  Not quite as many as yesterday either.  Anyways by 10:15 or so, it seemed to dry up and we didn’t see any tarpon around any longer.  We drove around for 20 minutes looking, but just not much happening.  Glad we got there when we did, we had a good 1.5 hour window that made for a fantastic day!  We finished up in the bay catching a few trout and snappers, it got rough again so too rough to look for tripletail.  Looks like we have a front coming in starting tomorrow.  It’s suppose to blow west but very light in the morning, so those fish may stick around for part of the day.  We have the same group tomorrow, and they wanna try it again, so we will likely go for it.  Fingers crossed they stay there!  But the tarpon bite will likely slow down over the weekend with temperatures dropping into the low 60s for several nights.  3 for 4

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