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First day back after a week away! Always a little nerve wracking starting fresh after you’ve been off and out of your groove, especially when conditions aren’t great with a southwest wind like we had. Fished with return customers Andy and his sons Derek and Conrad, they’ve fished with me for a long time and are always pretty lucky (we had my best day tarpon fishing ever last year, landing an incredible 16). I had heard the tarpon bite had been fair while I was away still though, nothing red hot but a few fish spread out in multiple areas. Luckily bait was easy for us that’s always the first battle and we won it handily. I decided to fish the light gear with the last of the incoming tide just to put some fish on the boat since I wasn’t sure how cooperative the tarpon would be. We got into a great bite of redfish probably catching 3 dozen or so. After the tide quit and the sharks showed up, we went after the silver king. Checked a couple areas and didn’t see a whole lot, but eventually we did see some signs indicating there may be some in the area. Sure enough they started to pop up a little bit, but we still had slack tide. We waited through it and the fish seemed to spread out and leave. We made a move and caught a few sharks, and Derek got a big old 13 lb redfish which was cool. Then Conrad jumped a small tarpon! We set back up and sure enough both boys hooked one and we had a double header on! Caught both fish, little guys that were under 40 inches so we lifted them quickly and carefully for a quick picture before releasing them. After that things slowed down, we fished a couple more areas without much with exception to a few blacktip sharks. Made a big move and then again more sharks, did see a few tarpon jumping and busting but very spread out and didn’t seem to be much of a concentration of them. We made one last move to another area and again saw a few signs of them. Set up and sure enough, dad got a nice 60 lb tarpon to the leader but unfortunately he went through it as we were trying to roll him over. Derek got another tarpon though that we got boatside as well but again he threw the hook before we could get a picture by the boat, but no big deal. Anyways a pretty great day of fishing for us despite not so great conditions with the wind. I’ve got a few more days booked this week and then plenty of time open mid august. If anyone wants to catch a silver king it’s still possible and I think we may get some nice calm weather again near the end of the week, or at least more light easterly breezes, which could really turn things on. 4 for 5

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

Well the wind went back to more southeasterly and let up a lot making it nice and calm today. Much better than the more Westerly wind we had the last couple of days. I had John who works with Pelagic Gear from Texas for the day. Tarpon was on his list so we tried to make it happen. Bait was nice and easy for us. We looked for tarpon in a couple spots early, but didn’t see a whole lot. So we checked another area and nothing in the first stop there, but the next stop we did see a few. We got set up and first bait out John hooked and caught a nice 35 lber! Some large blacktips kept us busy after that and we jumped 1 more tarpon. We moved and got around a few more tarpon, after a few sharks we jumped 1 more and then John got a 20 lber tarpon to the leader for a technical release. After that things slowed down so we switched gears. Hit some spots for snook/reds and it was productive. No big swarms of fish but we probably tried a half dozen spots and all of them had a handful of reds. We did hook up 3 snook too but unfortunately couldn’t keep any of them buttoned. After that we ran to another area as some weather was starting to dissipate. We had more shark action but then saw some tarpon show and soon John had another tarpon on! Got this one boatside for some good pictures. After that we had some more sharks. Had a couple big groups of tarpon go by but no response out of them. It was time to head in after that but all in all a great day for John catching his first 3 tarpon, 15 or so reds, plenty of sharks, and just missing the Backcountry slam losing a few snook. I’m off on vacation tomorrow will be back fishing the Sunday after this one. Hope the fish have a chance to settle in while I’m gone!  3 for 5

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

Got out with Jeff and his son Brock today.  Winds kicked up from yesterday’s flat calm… a good 15 mph southwest breeze.  Not our favorite wind direction!  We headed out early and bait was still fairly easy at least.  We picked a few redfish after that then looked for tarpon.  They hadn’t bit well on the incoming tide the last few days, but we had a couple hours of it so it was worth looking.  We did see a few fish and gave it a whirl.  No reaction though, we moved a good 3 times, and got in front of fish I thought each time.  But they didn’t seem to continue to come by as they do when they’ve been biting.  Sharks weren’t too happy either but we did manage a big nurse shark and sting ray.  We bailed and tried a few other snook/red spots.  Got one small snook, and a few nice trout in one spot.  Then we got the reds going a little bit more, probably caught a dozen or so though sharks got 3 or 4 of them unfortunately.  The tide changed and we gave the tarpon a shot again.  But didn’t see a whole lot now.  Again we moved around and fished hard, got in front of a few fish but again just didn’t seem to be a lot of them coming by once we set up.  Gave it a good extra 30 minutes and tried another channel where we had a few bites several days ago.  But just not much activity, we did finally jump one fish but one of those bites where they didn’t even bend the rod over just jumped and the bait was out of his mouth before it even pulled… characteristic of when they aren’t happy!  Oh well unfortunately that put an end to a good streak of catching, I think around the last 25 trips or so we’d gotten at least 1.

July hadn’t been anything like last year though at least it’s still been consistent, and we’ve had plenty of other opportunities for things like redfish, snook, tripletail, trout, and such.  I’ve got the day off tomorrow, then fishing Friday, then I’ll be out of town for a week.  Hoping August we might have some red hot fishing or at least where it gets easy and we don’t have to think about it so much!  Won’t know until it gets here though.  0 for 1

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