Uncategorized

Well all good things must come to an end. We had a good run of catching tarpon. Every trip all the way back to August I think, but today unfortunately that came to an end. I had Dan, Paul, and Michael out this morning. The boys wanted to pull on big stuff, so we forwent catching smaller baits and focused on tarpon. I caught a few bigger baits around the marina early but hoped we’d get some more. Unfortunately bait was very tough out back, we checked quite a few areas but didn‘t see much that was catchable. With the wind cranking 20 to 25, it was fairly muddy too. We decided to just fish with what we had. I hopes the tarpon would be where they were yesterday, and we did see a few, but not what was there the day before. We fished hard and moved around a few times but only had 1 shark bite that cut us off. After a while we didn’t see much any more so we looked around for more bait now that the tide had fallen out. Again saw some but just too hard to line up on and much of it was still way up shallow. We went and tried one other area where I had seen some tarpon last week. We did see a big one jump as soon as we got there, but again never had a bite. We moved around again and did see another fish roll and splash but just no interest in feeding. Anyways tough day we gave it a good shot but sometimes you can’t make it happen. The boys still enjoyed seeing the backcountry and great sunrise and still want to come back hopefully when the fish are more cooperative. Looks like we have see many weather tomorrow, taking the day off and then a few openings midweek. Hopefully the wind will lay back down later in the week and we might get a few more decent weeks of tarpon fishing before it cools off!  0 for 0

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

Got out with Pat and some of his buddies today after some tarpon.  We had some leftover bait and decided to leave later so we could catch some pilchards as I’d been having some better luck with small tarpon and getting a few snook and redfish as well with those.  The pilchards were easy we got a well full in 1 throw!  We ran out back and found  a good group of tarpon jumping, and set up on them.  Tide was near the end of the fall, and we definitely had some fish behind us.  However they did not respond, we moved around a few times, and had them roll over our baits and bust nearby, but no strikes!  The tide quit and we waited for it to start in.  I moved around again, and finally after a good hour and 20 minutes or so, we got a bite and Pat had a nice 75 lb tarpon!  We caught him and got a few pictures and then kept at it.  Unfortunately I was through most of my bait at this point trying to get a response out of the fish.  But we got in front of some more after another move and then we jumped another tarpon off.  Soon after though we had redemption and caught another one about a 50 lber!  Then we were pretty much out of bait.  I told the boys we could go fish with our pilchards for other stuff, or try to catch some more mullet to tarpon fish with.  They wanted the big tarpon so we went after some mullet.  We were able to locate a few and even though it was near noon, we made a few throws and caught another 15 baits or so.  We ran into a few other guides and I gave some piclhards away to give us some good karma!  We ran back to where we were and got into some big blacktips right away.  We moved further out in the area, and saw a tarpon on the sonar and then saw one roll soon after we had set up.  Eventually we got another tarpon and landed our last one of the day making 3 fish, one for each of the crew.  One of our last baits out Pat jumped another big tarpon after that, about a 100 lber.  And that was all she wrote.  But pretty good fishing overall especially considering it was blowing 20-25 mph!  I’m back at it tomorrow, have to catch some bait early as I don’t have any leftovers, so hopefully we can get some.  3 for 5

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

Fun day with Chase and Stephanie visiting from Tennessee! Chase wanted to catch a tarpon and I told him I’d still been having some luck though it’d gotten a little tougher with the bigger ones this last week with the wind and all. So we decided to focus on some small guys. Bait was a little harder than yesterday, took an hour or so but we managed to catch enough and then headed out into the backcountry. We didn’t get much in our first stop though after 10 minutes or so though, Stephanie hooked a nice 10 lb tarpon free lining a pilchard! She reeled him to the boat after a good fight, but unfortunately he jumped and threw the hook next to the boat before we could get him up for some pictures. After that we drifted in and Chase hooked a nice snook we missed. We tried another area where we found a lot of small tarpon yesterday but did not see much there today, just a handful. So we kept moving and then found an area with a good amount of tarpon. They were fairly happy too, we drifted some baits in and had a few bust on them, then Stephanie hooked another one that jumped off right away! After that Chase got one, and this guy we did get to the boat a nice little 7 or 8 lber. After that we caught a few jacks and the tarpon seemed to slow down a little. We moved and tried a few other areas, which all had some tarpon in them but no response. We did get a big snook though for Stephanie, and Chase got a redfish and a spanish mackerel for a boat backcountry SLAM! We then decided to see if some bigger tarpon were showing offshore, and we did find a good pack. We moved in on them and had to readjust a couple times. Definitely were in the zone but unfortunately they did not want to bite for us. We hooked several big sharks, and caught a nurse, a couple big black tips, and a few others that bit us off. That was about all she wrote, not a ton of fish but some quality ones and Chase got what he was after so it was all good! Couple days off and then booked on the weekend, may go fun fishing one day if time permits to check out some other areas.  2 for 3

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