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Got out again yesterday with one of my regulars.  We focused strictly on tarpon.  We had enough bait leftover from the previous day but did spend a little time looking for bait early on which proved difficult but luckily we had what we needed.  We ran far in the backcountry where we had found the tarpon the previous day but alas didn’t see too much there.  We spent some time looking and scanning around with sonar but to no avail.  I was sure they had to be somewhere in the area so we started backtracking a bit.  After about 4 or 5 miles we notice a few splashes on the surface and I pull the boat out of gear.  “Keep your eyes peeled, watch for any signs of activity” I say to my customers.  Sure enough we see a few tarpon tails slapping the surface and another one breach the surface.  I watch the sonar and sure enough it lights up like a christmas tree soon – we’re in ’em!  A massive school with thousands of fish and we’re seeing them from where we are to nearly a mile away.  We set up and sure enough they’re happy we ended up boating six tarpon and jumping off another 4 or so.  Just incredible fishing and no sharks really to deal with which was great.  After a couple hours though things kind of start to fizzle out.  We’re not seeing as much and I’m sure we could still catch one if we worked really hard but being we had such a banner morning it just kind of feels like it’s time to be done so we call it a day!  So it’s great to see such good fishing right now I’m hoping it will hold through the rest of September and October.  I’ve been saying I feel things had been building up to have a great fall season of fishing just with the cleaner water we’ve had in areas of the backcountry and all the bait that showed up a few months ago.  I’ve also been running the boat a little more now since Capt. Stephen is on vacation and I’ll take a few more trips this month if anyone is interested drop me a line.  Steve will be back in October though I may still run a few trips then as well.  Come take advantage of good fishing and light crowds in Islamorada!

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

Got out today with long time customer Jeff G along with Capt. Trent who is running my other boat now.  We tried to mix it up and started off snook fishing with some pilchards we caught.  Had dead low tide and kind of a funky tidal current with not much moving water early on.  Didn’t do much and we fished around in 4 or 5 different areas.  Late morning though we happened to see a tarpon bust and had some mullet we had caught while snook fishing.  So we looked around and found it was quite a good school of tarpon!  We set up and soon we had tarpon in the air!  They weren’t sticking on the hook too well for us we put 3 or 4 in the air before we landed 1.  Then we proceeded to catch 3 more it was a really good bite, and then jumped a few more larger ones off after that!  I think we had a dozen bites just good tarpon fishing….  We stopped on the way home on a spot and caught a couple nice big redfish and even had one more shot at a tarpon that at a pilchard on a jig but he came off unfortunately.  Still though banner day landing 4 nice tarpon and hooking a dozen or more.  The September tarpon bite has been really good I’ve not been out a ton but we did get out last Wednesday and caught 6 tarpon that day as well and hooked 10 i think.  I may fish a few more days this month so give me a shout and if I can’t go, Capt. Trent is standing by.

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

Got out for the last two days with the Purcell group from England.  We had the edge of hurricane Idalia come by us a week ago and it brought a fair amount of rain and bit of wind that’s persisted since.  Water temps in the bay dropped from around 90 to 81 or so.  Definitely a bit of a ‘fall’ feel to things with the slight cooloff.  The last two days we had a fairly stiff northeast breeze to start that swung east later in the day.  First day we caught pilchards near home and did some light tackle fishing most of the day.  Snook fishing was decent and we also caught a small tarpon while doing that.  Mid day we put the big tarpon gear out and hooked a couple tarpon doing that.  One of them was a big 100 lber and he went right through the leader as we were rigged up for the smaller 30-40 lb fish which are typically much more prevalent now.  Though we got a 2nd chance and hooked a nice 30 lber right after that.  We landed him but weren’t able to get pictures unfortunaly.  Day 2 we just focues on the big rods for the most part.  Fished a different area and found some tarpon spread out.  They weren’t showing too much but with advanced sonar we were able to line up on them and get a few bites!  We caught a nice one to start and then next move we hooked another one that threw the hook unfortunately.  Caught a few sharks and then after one more move we got one more tarpon which was great!  We gave it a little bit more but no more tarpon love though we did get a few more sharks.  We moved back to where we had fished the day before and found a group of roaming fish right in the same area we had our hookups the day before.  That’s the power of fishing multiple days you just find little tid bits like that and can help you in future fishing!  Anyways we set up and had to give it a little time but after about 20 minutes we hooked a double header tarpon!  Very cool and we were able to land both fish and get a cool picture.

Anyways fishing can be good through September.  I’ve been fishing a few trips since Capt. Stephen is out of town.  I may take a few more trips if you are looking to go later this month give me a shout.  Steve will be back on in October and that is one of my favorite months of the year to fish.  Just lots of bait around and the more typical northeasterly breezes.  Lots of tarpon heading south too as it cools off up north.

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