Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

10/10/23 October Tarpon Update

Well I had a bit of a break here for the first week of October.  Took my dad fishing once and we caught a few nice snook.  But today I had Mr. Bill who manages the marina for our family and his son Wayne, along with my dad too.  We snook fished most of the day but brought the tarpon gear in case the opportunity presented it self.  Didn’t see any massive schools of tarpon throughout the day or much to really get excited about.  But there was plenty of bait around, and random crashes on them in lots of the usual fishing haunts.  My personal take is things are just kind of ‘spread out’ right now – there are tarpon around but really kind of spread thin all over.  We ended up just kind of looking around slowly with our sonar along some shoreline and eventually marked one.  Set up and within 5 minutes had a big shark on and a few minutes later hooked a nice 75 lb tarpon we caught.  Capt. Stephen had the boat yesterday and they hooked several small tarpon while snook fishing, and ended up catching a couple later in the day too.  So definitely not a bad time to try and catch tarpon right now and I think once we get a little more cool weather up north which we’re suppose to in a few days, it may push some larger schools of fish our way and we may have a few weeks of really good tarpon fishing.

Right now next week is really busy we have trips booked every day with two boats.  Though myself or Capt. Stephen can likely squeeze an extra trip in now since we have two contender bays available.  So if you want to get out after the silver king, give me a shout.  I’ll shoot ya straight with regards to what I think our chances our but overall it seems decently good now and bait is fairly easy which is one of the biggest factors.

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

 

October 10, 2023 by October Fishing Rick Stanczyk

9/28/2023 September Tarpon Bite keepin’ on!

Well we’re near the end of September and the tarpon bite has still been fairly consistent!  I had Greg out earlier this week and we had banner fishing.  He booked a trip a little while ago after reading my September newsletter talking about how good tarpon fishing had been lately.  I think we hooked over 10 fish and it was just easy livin’.  Some days are like that.  We had a good incoming tide early on which as I’ve mentioned lately just seems to be the better fishing right now.  We didn’t really have to move too much the fish just kept coming by us, sometimes in packs of 6 or 8!  We caught a double header at one point which was fun especially with just one angler!  Had another big moose fish we hooked at the end that we fought for over an hour but unfortunately couldn’t roll her over.  But great day none the less!  Today on Thursday I had return customer Mike.  Weather was very questionable early at 5 AM, didn’t think we were going to get out.  But by 6:30 it started to dry up so we left soon after that.  Today the tarpon were not super thick like they were a few days ago.  We had slack tide first thing, so I was hoping once it picked up going in they would start to respond a little more.  We made a couple moves early on and after about 30 minutes put one in the air!  Then the tide started in and it never got into a red hot bite, nor did I see a ton of fish.  But the few good looks we got when we were scanning with sonar for tarpon, we were able to get those fish to bite and hooked 3 more. The first one was another 100 lber that we fought for a good 45 minutes that again we couldn’t quite get to roll over.  Then we got a couple of 40-50 lbers to the hand after that for good pictures.  Never got rained on really either so that was a plus too!

So fishing is still pretty good for tarpon.  Baits been around too I did catch bait for my Thursday trip the day before.  Some real nice mullet muds with lots of mullet so that is nice to have around.  I have plenty of days open next week and Capt. Stephen is returning too, so we can definitely still get you out in October if you are looking to catch the silver king here in the off season.

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

 

September 28, 2023 by Rick Stanczyk September Fishing

9/22/2023 Some more tarpon these last couple of september fishing charters!

Got out with a group trip the last two days my good customer Gerald from Las Vegas and his crew of builders had 5 boats booked for two days. They come a couple times of year often in the late spring for big tarpon and then in the offseason around now. Fishing honestly was a little tough yesterday we focused more on snook and fishing with our light rods with pilchards. Falling tides all day long mostly. I had Jack on the boat and we picked away at snook early on. But it was about a fish or maybe not in every ‘good’ spot you hit. No big rallies and lots of moving around and time to invest for a handful of bites. We switched to tarpon a little after that and we jumped two fish back to back! Couldn’t keep ’em buttoned which was frustrating. We caught a tripletail and big redfish after that and a few more snook, but finished the day with a nice juvenile tarpon so all in all not bad just really had to work for it. But the whole group of boats had tough fishing just one of those days nothing seemed to be super happy. Today we focused more in larger tarpon and we found a school first thing. Same school I’ve fished a couple times in the last few weeks it’s not a lot of fish, but they are biting and there aren’t a lot of ‘pickers’ messing with the baits which makes it nice. We jumped a tarpon and then next stop we hooked two back to back. Landed them both and got pictures which was great! After that we caught a handful of snook and a goliath grouper, then saw a few more tarpon free jumping and busting in another area. Again not a huge school of fish but we got lined up and put our baits out and boom we were hooked up in about 2 minutes with a nice 80 lb fish! Awesome fight for Jack and good opportunity for pictures again. So all in all a great day.

I’m hoping next week the big school of tarpon may show back up. Who knows possibly with the incoming tidal scenario things will be much different. But I think we’ll still get a good fall push once the bait runs start it’s almost October and that is the time usually. Have some days open in October so give me a shout if you want to get set up!

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

September 22, 2023 by Uncategorized
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Hello my name is Capt. Rick Stanczyk. I’m a fishing guide in the fabulous Florida Keys, Islamorada to be specific. Tarpon are the species I spend a lot of time fishing for and they are my passion. Along with myself, I have a team of young talented guides who I've trained that are available for tarpon charters, so please get in touch if you want to go fishing!

305-747-6903
rick@islamoradatarpon.com

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