Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Incredible day with Andy Thompson and his sons Conrad and Derek! Just when you didn’t think it could get any better after yesterday it did! We headed out early and spent some time catching our bait. Nice and easy after a few tosses of the cast net we had the well full of fresh live bait. I told the boys fishing was pretty good yesterday and we had ideal conditions today (calm, warm) so it likely would be again. We joked about possibly setting the season record again as I told them I broke it yesterday. Low and behold we went and did that and didn’t jinx ourselves! We caught the start of the falling tide and found a huge school of tarpon that had moved in from the Gulf. Pretty green water and I just knew they would be happy. Our first two baits that hit the water yielded a double header within a few minutes! A big 100 lb fish and a smaller 40 lber. We had to chase the 100 lber down and that was the biggest fish I’ve had landed in over a month or so. We ended up catching two more double headers after that – just ridiculous! After that we had a few singles, missed a few fish including two more double headers, and Derek got a nice cobia that swam up by the boat. After that the tarpon seemed like they slowed down a hair, but we continued picking away at them, fish of all sizes from 30 lbs to 80 lbs or so. We got a big lemon shark too. Conrad had a big tarpon that we thought was a lemon and we cranked the drag down hard on him almost to try and break him off but decided better of it. Turns out it was a nice 90 lb tarpon that just didn’t want to jump and was doing erratic, head shaking runs like a shark! The tide eventually quit on us and we were about to call it quits, having beaten my record handily already. Then we ended up hooking another double header! Unfortunately one of those fish came unbuttoned, but Andy got his for the final fish. The boys went 16 for 20 for just a magical day here in Islamorada, Florida fishing for tarpon. July has been nothing short of epic… it’s not even half way over and I’m already closing in on my best monthly total ever after two huge days yesterday and today. For those that don’t know the summer time is hands down my favorite time of year for fishing down here. Yes it’s hot but it’s worth a little sweat to get conditions like these on the regular. No big crowds, tons of fish, good conditions – you really couldn’t ask for anything else if you are a fishermen. I’m scheduled to be off tomorrow but just may have to get out there for fun or move some of my clients around later in the week because it looks like it’ll be flat calm again and you can bet fishing will be good.  16 for 20

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

Got out with John Page today who has been following me on Facebook for a while.  He wanted to catch some tarpon and booked the day a little while back.  We headed out early and I told him fishing had been pretty good as of late.  Summer time as I always say it’s my favorite time of year!  We got on the bait early to start and loaded the wells.  Always nice when that part is easy.  We checked a few spots for tarpon along the way but didn’t see much.  We did have a nice northerly breeze which was cool, but may have been keeping the tarpon from showing as much.  Anyways I decided to run where we had done well the last few days.  Caught the last trickle of incoming tide to start but we did eventually see a few fish roll.  Not much but when the tide started to fall the bite turned on.  We ended up getting five tarpon here plus a few sharks and other odds and ends!  John did well and listened precisely how I explained to hook and fight the tarpon, and he was rewarded with not missing a single fish all day.  I on the other hand did miss a couple of bites lol but mostly out of the rod holder.  After that slowed down we ran out originally to try some other stuff.  I decided to check a spot though in hopes of catching something cool like a cobia or big snook.  Low and behold there were some tarpon out here too!  We did get a big snook to start which was very cool.  Then we shuffled around and got in front of the tarpon.  Pretty much insantly we were on with a nice 75 lb tarpon for John, good size fish.  We battled him and then went back to where we were.  Eventually the tide turned and we had a few more bites.  We ended up getting four more tarpon here and like I said missed a couple others, including a would-be double header!  After that though the tarpon seemed to thin out for the last 30 minutes, but overall just phenomenal fishing!  It ended up being my best day of the season with 10 tarpon landed!  John had a banner day and can’t wait to come back next year.  Hopefully the fishing stays like this for a while longer.  August is just around the corner and it can still be very good no doubt, I have plenty of days open so if you wanna try your hand at it, give me a shout!  10 for 12

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

Got out for Day 2 with David and Dana.  We headed out early and caught some bait in the backcountry.  The bait wasn’t in the same spot as the last few days so had to look around a little, but found a good school of it a mile or so away.  We loaded up and then searched for tarpon.  I checked an area where a buddy of mine said yesterday he had seen a bunch of tarpon.  I was hoping there’d be some larger size fish there, but we looked around for 10 minutes and never saw a sign of them.  It was slick calm so they shoul’ve been easy to see.  I didn’t run all over the places but just checked where he had seen them, so they could’ve been further up one of those channel areas, but I didn’t want to invest too much time.  We ran back where we had found them yesterday.  Today there was still a load of fish there, mostly small to medium size tarpon.  We ended up doing pretty well and had five bites and landed all five fish, finishing up with a double header!  Also plenty of bluefish, jacks, and a few large catfish.  By 9:30 or so though the bite was over.  We checked another channel nearby and saw a few tarpon there too, but the by-catch was too strong to get through.  We wrapped it up at 10:30 and headed back on our 3/4 day.  Great day again hopefully it continues to stay this good, back at it tomorrow.  5 for 5

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