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Awesome day 2 with Kim and Rosie from Australia. The weather slicked out and wind quit for a change. We headed out early in search of bait and tarpon. Bait was fairly easy though messy again, but glad to get them. Didn’t see a whole lot of tarpon early on the last of incoming tide. We checked 3 or 4 spots. Yesterday though they didn’t bite great then either though we did see some, but only saw 1 or 2 random ones early. We decided to bail and fish other stuff until the tide changed. Caught a nice snook and a few trout in one spot, and a shark got another snook. Ran to another spot and got into a good redfish bite catching a couple dozen or so. Sharks here too but we only lost 1 thankfully. The tide quit and we went looking for tarpon again. The same grounds that were not lively early now looked fishy. We saw several fish in the area and set up. Soon Rosie was hooked up and caught one, and a little later got another. She definitely had the hot hand. Kim got a monster snook though later, completely random but always love finding those big breeders this time of year. Rosie jumped and caught another tarpon. Then finally Kim had his shot and got a tarpon! He also caught 1 more big breeder snook that we got a long distance release on. Just action packed with quality there for a while. We caught a few sharks too. Tried another spot to finish the day, hoped to find some permit but no luck. Though we did hook a big Goliath but unfortunately he rocked us up and we could not budge him. All in all though a banner day. Love those slicked out summer days!  4 for 5

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

Great 3/4 day with Jimmy and Carsten from Denmark. We stuck to where I’ve been finding tarpon the last week or so, since we didn’t see much up the road yesterday. Bait was a little easier for us. Found ’em early on with the last of the incoming tide, but they didn’t want to respond! We didn’t even have a shark bite… Kind of strange. We fished hard and after an hour the tide quit. We did look around in another area as the wind laid out nicely while we waited for a tide change but didn’t see much. We ran back to where we started after the tide switched and right away saw a few tarpon showing some signs. We set up and soon Jimmy jumped one. A few minutes later we got a nice one to stick… Big 80 lber! Carsten caught him and did a great job fighting it. After that we set back up, and a little later he got another 40 lber. Jimmy got a couple sharks too. We jumped one more tarpon off after that. The tripletails popped up nicely too on the out tode and we caught 4 or 5, including a nice 12 lber! Back home for lunch, back at it tomorrow!  2 for 4

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

Back on the water after a couple days off. Had Kim and Rosie visiting from Australia. We had a variety of bait and tried to catch a bit more. Winds were still blustery out of the southeast. Bait was a little difficult but we were able to get a few fresh ones. We made a long run up the coast as I had some good report on fish up there, but unfortunately we didn’t see much for tarpon life. We tried several spots hoping for some snooks and reds, but not a whole lot of cooperation aside from catfish! We did catch a couple though and Rosie got a black drum too. We made our way back to some of the areas where id found tarpon last week. No bites in the first stop but we did get a few sharks including a hammerhead. Next stop we did see some signs of tarpon. We did some moving around and managed to get Rosie a nice 40 lb tarpon. We had some more shark action. Really had to work at the tarpon though to get a response. I gave it an extra half hour since we got a little bit of a late start, and Rosie did end up jumping a couple more tarpon unfortunately they didn’t stay on the hook for us. Anyways definitely a bit of a struggle today for us but any day you land a tarpon is a good one in my book!  1 for 3

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