Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Well got out one last day here and am out of town for a couple weeks now until Mid July.  But the winds finally laid down over the weekend here as it blew a good 20mph+ all week last week.  Between that and all the rain the week before, the backountry tarpon that we had found a couple weeks ago still hadn’t shown up real thick back there yet.  So we stuck to the bridges today.  It was calm and very hot but luckily we had semi-overcast conditions for part of the day to help with the heat.  We actually saw a good number of tarpon around all day long.  They weren’t pulling us out of the boat though.  But we fished down around one of the bridges I’ve been fishing lately and we caught a couple tarpon and jumped one more, plus had another good zip or two that were possibly tarpon.  That was all from 7 AM till about 10:30 AM.  We also had a few big jack crevelles and mutton snappers so all in all it was good action with some tarpon mixed in.  After that though things died down and we went a good hour or more without much of anything happening.  I decided to run back up near home and fish the local channels which I hadn’t really done all year.  Sure enough we found some tarpon in an area where Capt. Steve had pointed me too and said he had some luck there a few days ago.  We ended up catching two more tarpon on our last 4 baits!  Good way to finish for sure.  No facegrabs today we came close a few times but the fish were just being stubborn and we had one early on get eaten by a bull shark which hadn’t happened much lately but goes to show there are still a few around to worry about.  But great day we ended up catching four tarpon and jumped off one other, with possibly a couple other zips but who knows what they were.

Again as mentioned I’m out of town now for a bit but Capt. Steve and Capt. Trent will be running the show.  They’ve still been getting on tarpon lately and half day trips are totally doable if you don’t want to deal with the heat.  As we approach July I’m hoping the backcountry tarpon fishing will turn back on… I think it will once the weather stabilizes which it seems to be doing now.  July is often one of my favorite months for those resident fish… much less fishing pressure and of course in the backcountry there are shots at snook, tripletail, redfish, and more.  Give me a shout if you want to get out.  I may personally have some days available towards the end of July but won’t know until a couple weeks.

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

Well slower week work wise for me this week I was suppose to fish two days but one of my customers had forgot about there trip so only ended up fishing Tuesday.  We had some crazy weather last week with lots of rain flooding a good part of south florida/miami, though we were fortunate down here we didn’t get blasted as hard though still had a good bit.  On a positive note it brought down some of the temperatures we’ve been seeing and I’m sure helped drop the salinity in the bay which isn’t a bad thing.  I did get out with my dad a few days ago looking around in the backcountry mostly for snook, though I had my eyes open for tarpon while we were fishing.  Unfortunately all the tarpon we had found out there 10 or so days ago had disappeared.  Not sure if that was the rain or all the southwesterly wind we had last week but definitely didn’t look like what it was in those areas.  I had spoken to  a few other guides that had fished back there and they didn’t see much in the places they were.  But hopefully once it calms down again they’ll return…  i think they will and July that fishing usually gets better back there for us.

This week we had 20-25mph easterly winds, much better direction but still a good blow for this time of year.  I fished Tuesday with Mike and Kathy and they were down for there 40th wedding anniversary!  Mike had wanted to catch a tarpon and we went to work to make it happen.  I ended up fishing the bridges all day because as mentioned we didn’t see much for tarpon in the backcountry a couple days before and also with the heavy winds it would take some time to move around if we needed to do that.  So i figured better to hunker down around the bridges because I knew there would still be some fish around there.  Thankfully there were… we ended up fishing the whole day around the one bridge because we kept seeing fish all throughout the day.  The bite wasn’t red hot but that can definitely be the case with 25 mph winds.  We ended up hooking one fish right off the bat that we fought for a bit and then it swam into the bridge on us.  After that we mad a couple of moves and jumped off another one.  After that things quitted down for a bit though we kept at it and on the slack tide about an hour and a half later we hooked a nice fish.  Had this one boatside on the leader and nearly rolled over but we pulled the hook trying to subdue her so unfortunately no pictures with the facegrab but a properly landed fish anyhow.  Then after that we ended up hooking one more again that we fought for almost an hour and unfortunately same thing she just wouldn’t give up and once more we pulled the hook trying to put the breaks on her next to the boat for the picture.  Anyways again not a red hot bite but not bad for 25 mph winds and getting into the time of year where it can be hit or miss a little bit.  Tarpon fishing should still be viable and as we get into July and the weather stabilizes I think the backcountry fishing will get better and more consistent for them.  I have one more day on Monday and then will be out of town until July 7th.  Though Capt. Steve and Capt. Trent will both be available while I’m gone.  They’ve both been having luck with tarpon still, Trent has been doing a lot of half days and catching them nearby in the evenings so those trips are still an option.  Drop me a line if you would like to get something set up.

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