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Got out with Mike and his son and daughter, Mike and Jill, today for a full day.  Tarpon was a request so we focused on that most of the day.  I checked a few spots early while waiting on the tide to change but didn’t see a whole lot.  I ran to where we’d been having luck the last few days to give it a whirl.  Once the tide got moving, the sharks got active.  Blacktips, bonnetheads, and some big lemons!  Didn’t have a tarpon bite early on though.  I moved once and caught a big blacktip, but still no tarpon.  Did see a few fish rolling here and there though not often.  On the 3rd move we got on them, and had a flurry of action that lasted about 10 minutes.  We jumped off one small fish right away.  Then about 5 minutes later we hooked one that we got up to the wind-on leader, about 15 feet from the boat, though he jumped and threw the hook there.  A technical release since we had the leader.  The third bite came about 5 minutes after that.  Jill got a nice little tarpon about a 25 lber.  He jumped and went crazy several times, but we got him to the boat and up for a few pictures before releasing him.  After that things slowed down for tarpon.  We caught a few more sharks, and tried some different channels, but no luck.  We finished the day catching a few trout and ladyfish.  2 for 3

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Paul and Chris again today.  The weather didn’t both us too much though some squalls were passing through the bay but we stayed out of them.  We caught some bait early… the summer time bait is really showing up and that is a good thing hopefully means it’ll be easy for bait the next couple months.  We checked some of the far distant areas for tarpon with it being flat calm early, though didn’t see any signs of life.  We looked hard too but not much, I didn’t even bother to try and fish.  We ran back and hit the channels where i’d been having some luck.  One area has held fish semi-consistently, and we started there.  Right off the bat we hooked a double header tarpon which was awesome!  Landed both fish too.  After that it seemed to quite right down.  We fished for another 45 minutes or so, then Paul hooked a nice 100 lb fish!  We fought him for a little bit and got him to the boat as well for some pictures and got a healthy release after 30 minutes or so.  After that I decided to try some other areas since it seemed to be slowing down.  We never had another tarpon bite, nor saw another fish either.  We did catch a hammerhead shark, and a few other sharks, but that was all.  A fellow captain I talked to fished some other areas and said he really struggled never having a tarpon bite all day, so we felt lucky to get what we did!  Hopefully some more fish move into the backcountry and settle into the areas, right now you just have to pick and move and hope a few swim by you… no guaranteed home runs right now!  3 for 3

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Chris and Paul today visiting from Overseas, the UK and France.  We tarpon fished and it was very good.  Had a good load of bait from yesterday so we were all set on that front.  We found a few fish in the channels yesterday where we were, and several rolled nearby us.  Paul got one early a small 30 lber.  Then got another one a little later after we moved of about 75 lbs, nice fish!  We also got a few sharks, and a nice surprise cobia!  After that things slowed down so we hit another channel.  We dropped into a load of tarpon… right place right time!  The boys proceeded to hook a double header which was cool!  Landed both fish and then we caught one last one, a bigger one for Chris of about 60 lbs.  After that things slowed up and we were about out of bait, so we headed home to dodge the incoming rainstorms.  All in all a great day of fishing in the everglades in islamorada.  Got the same crew for the next 4 days, today will be hard to top but hopefully we can come close.  5 for 5

Capt. Rick Stanczyk