Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Well I got out yesterday on a short notice trip in the backcountry.  Wasn’t quite sure what to expect but we’ve had prevailing calm, warm weather.  Which if you can take the heat isn’t always a bad thing fishing wise.  We played it safe and spent some time looking for bait early.  Was able to catch a few local mullet as well as some small pilchards.  We ran out into the backcountry with snook really on the agenda.  Jumped around a few spots on the high water without too much luck aside from a small redfish.  Then on the 3rd stop we got into a few snook and managed to hook a nice small juvenile tarpon we landed.  We had to literally pull him out of the mouth of some aggressive lemon sharks.  They’ve been very bad lately so definitely be careful when you are fishing in the backcountry waters.  After that we made a little longer run that I like this time of year and sure enough it was absolutely loaded with all sizes of mullet.  Tarpon were  there too we ended up throwing the net for  3rd round and caught nice small finger mullets which were really what I was looking for.  Caught another tarpon there live lining one of those guys out which was fun.  We landed him right in time to run to another spot where I hoped we would bail the snook… as another boat had just showed up and I figured he might be going to the same spot.  But we got in there and caught a good 15 or so snook and then caught a nice big one to end the trip.  So it’s great to see so much bait around and some tarpon too plus good snook fishing.  I may take a few more trips this month but also Capt. Brandon and Capt. Trentin are at the ready to go.  The local tarpon fishing has been pretty good too I know both those guys have been catching multiple smaller tarpon each trip lately and again the bait is fairly consistent.  We often try to stay ahead of it with a cooler of dead baits just so we don’t get stuck.  But if you are in town and want to go tarpon fishing in July in Islamorada, give me a a shout and we’ll get you out on the water and as mentioned fishing and weather is good for it.

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

Got out at the end of last month with my regular customer Rob Thomas and his buddies Rick and Carl.  Some bait has been around which is good news and I went and found it there again today (July 5) because I’m fishing tomorrow.  But last week we fished on the 28th and focused on tarpon in the backcountry.  Started out around Flamingo and got a nice fish in the first stop, about a 60 lber for Carl.  Saw a handful in the area too but after we caught the one it was more or less over with seemingly.  After that we ran out west and fished around the mainland beaches.  Didn’t visually see a whole lot but I ran to a general area I like to fish in the mid summer and sure enough we started marking a few fish on the sonar.  We set up soon after and sure enough we caught another one pretty quickly, about a 30 lber smaller fish.  Had several fish coming by us for about 20 minutes or so though we didn’t get another tarpon bite sitting there.  After that we moved around and could still see a handful of fish rolling here and there.  We moved a couple times and jumped one more fish.  Other than that it was not too bad with the sharks.  Sometimes the sharks can eat you alive but really we only hooked one about every 10-15 minutes.  After that we looked in one more area we didn’t have a whole lot of time but didn’t see much for tarpon but did catch a little bit of bait.  So all in all not bad it was good to see a decent body of fish and we had a handful of bites.  July should yield some decent fishing as mentioned there has been some bait around.  I’ll be taking a few trips short notice and Capt. Trentin and Capt. Brandon have some dates open too.  Capt. Brandon has been on the tarpon pretty good locally if you are interested in doing a half day.  Capt. Trentin is also still offering evening trips and the bait is close by locally so if you want to do that, the 4-8 PM window is often productive and I can about guarantee you’ll have it mostly to yourself which is always nice too.

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

So I got out with good return customers Jon & Jan this last week for a couple of days, Tuesday & Wednesday (yesterday and the day before).  On Tuesday we focused mostly on tarpon.  Bait was fairly easy to catch in the morning and we had a fair amount from a few days before so we loaded up with some extras.  We ran out into the backcountry where  I had been finding fish the last few trips.  Sure enough there were still a good group of fish out there, but unfortunately there was a fly fishing tournament going on and there were several boats on them first thing early in the morning.  We got lucky and set up a fair distance back and got one tarpon right away.  But as the day progressed the fish were moving with the tide and then more boats showed up so we had 5 or 6 guys trying to fly fish the group of fish.  Unfortunately for us bait fisherman it’s bad ettiquette to run in there in the midst of that.  Although there we of course fish in a fairly big area, the real concentration you wanted to get in was not all that big plus the little sharks were very bad if you got in the wrong spot, and with the fly guys around you can’t get within a football field of them or cut them off so we tried to be polite and not enroach to close which we did.  But we only ended up with that 1 bite and by 10:00 or so it seemed kinda over with and everyone left.  We tried a few spots of big snook and another area for tarpon but no luck.  But still a nice tarpon on the day and a big lemon shark and hammerhead shark, plus plenty of black tips.  I’m pretty sure we could’ve had more action if we could’ve fished where wanted but that’s not always the case.

Yesterday we had a total swing around in the wind direction, it went from northeasterly to southwesterly.  Luckily we loaded up with extra bait the day before because with the wind switch, the bait was gone today!  That’s why we often catch bait back there even when we don’t necessarily ‘need’ it for the day, because you never know when you aren’t gonna find it!  With the wind that direction, the fly fisherman were not in the same area as it gets a little rough and they don’t see the fish on the surface as much when you get those rolling waves.  Though fishing was not all that great we never had a tarpon bite early we did mark a few good schools of fish and got set up in good position but no love just sharks.  We gave it an hour and a half or so and then switched gears and went snook fishing.  Snook fishing was really good and all we had for bait was small shrimp and a few pinfish, so we didn’t need to catch special bait but we still ended up with close to 20 snook, and had a nice redfish that got eaten by a shark, and had a few baby tarpon eat the shrimp as well that we jumped off.

So that’s hopefully a good sign and one of the nice things about backcountry fishing sometimes there are good options if the tarpon don’t cooperate.  But as mentioned previously there has been a fair amount of bait around and tarpon around for the time of year it is back there and July may yield some good fishing for us it’s often a good month but you don’t know until it gets hear.  But I’ll be taking some trips in July more short notice so if you plan on being in the area drop me a line!

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