Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Chris, Kyle, and James today for a full day april tarpon fishing trip.  The cold front came in and the temperatures dropped a good bit.  Water temps were back down in the mid 70s locally, and in the 60s in the backcountry.  Normally mid 70s is OK for tarpon, but when it drops from being in the low 80s they don’t like it as much.  We found a few fish early on around the bridges, but not much activity out of them.  We moved around and eventually got one interested.  He gave us a bite but stole the mullet and then didn’t come back.  We then bent the light rods for a little bit on the patch reefs.  We tried tarpon again later on, found a few big jack crevells in the channels and a shark.  We moved several times and found a couple other groups of tarpon but they just were not interested.  We may of had one other pick up our bait and zip it before stealing it, not sure what it was.  Anyways the streak is over at 19 trips in a row, pretty good but I figured the cold front may do me in.  Oh well time for a new one!  0 for 1

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

Got out with Aaron, Ben, and Jake for a full day of tarpon fishing in the florida keys.  We fished locally as we had a cold front come in last night.  The temperatures didn’t drop like crazy, but somewhat and a hard north wind to start the day.  Crazy storm last night on the leading edge we actually had a tornado touch down in plantation key.  We caught some bait early on and found some active fish.  We had good activity and got a tarpon right off the bat.  Got a technical release as we reeled him quickly to the wind-on leader but then he jumped and threw the hook.  Unfortunately we had the rod high and pulled back on him and you must bow to the king when he jumps, not pull back!  After that we had a couple more good bites that we didn’t connect on, and one more that grabbed the mullet and spit it.  Plenty of ‘cheap shots’ too where fish came up and swatted the baits, flashed them, boiled on them, and all that fun stuff that goes along with our live mullet fishing.  It was entertaining to say the least!  After a couple hours of that the action slowed down and we ran back to some other areas.  Found a good group of tarpon but they just weren’t feeding we gave it about 45 minutes.  We moved around and found some more, and these guys were hungry!  We caught two tarpon very quickly, about 50 lbers.  One a 200 lb bull shark tried to eat it was very exciting and the tarpon got away thankfully!  We missed one more bite there too.  We moved around again because the fish seemed to have moved on at that point, and caught up with our sister boat who was into some fish.  We caught three more tarpon here.  It was just banner fishing and the last couple hours of the day mid afternoon.  Unfortunately I didn’t get a whole lot of pictures it was difficult with three guys on the boat and we were working hard to try and get them some fish after the missed opportunities we had early on.  So what a day landing 5 tarpon officially and missing quite a few more.  Looks like it’s gonna drop into the 60s tonight so that might switch things up a little, I don’t think it’ll totally kill the tarpon bite but they might move around or get picky.  We’ll find out tomorrow!  5 for 10

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

Got out with Allen and Stuart today, day two of our group trip with two other boats.  Bait’s been tough but we obtained a little yesterday afternoon.  Winds were kicking hard south with a front approaching this evening.  But the morning wasn’t bad just a bit windy.  One of the boats got in on a hungry pack of fish early and called us down.  We were the odd man out though, we were right in the middle of the two other boats with fish surrounding us.  We couldn’t get a bite though only bonnethead sharks!  The boats on either side of us each caught two.  We moved around a bit and finally when one of the boats hooked their second, they called us over and we just sat on their anchor ball.  We did get hooked up here finally – a big 150 lber!  Good fight and very acrobatic fish!  We got some good pictures boatside and released her unharmed.  We moved back into the area, and both the other boats hooked up again, one ended up catching three and another caught four.  We didn’t have another bite.  We even slid in where the other boats were as they moved to let us in since we were all fishing the same group.  But we had the bad mojo I guess.  Anyways I won’t say it was too bad as we did catch one, and a big one at that.  But just one of those days where we were in the dog house so to say!  Anyways I’m probably jinxing myself especially with the late cold front coming, but it’s been 18 trips in a row with landing at least one tarpon.  So I’ve been consistent if nothing else and I’ll usually always take that.  Back at it tomorrow but we do have lots of rain coming in tonight, but hopefully it’ll dry out by early morning.  1 for 1

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