Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Gary and his friend Bob today for a full day tarpon fishing charter.  We left early and got out after the fish.  Had a good load of bait from yesterday.  Winds were blowing somewhat, north breeze and a little chilly ride in the AM but it swung to east later on and warmed up.  Found a good amount of tarpon in our first area where I hadn’t been in several days.  Great to see!  Bob hooked up a nice 100 lber right off the bat!  We chased him around and landed him, but didn’t stay boatside for long on the leader but we got a few good jump shots and they got some video alongside the boat.  After that Gary got a small fish about a 50 lber which was great.  A little more acrobatic this one was.  We fished a little more and the sharks showed up but not as bad as they were last week.  We worked at it and got one more tarpon for Gary, a big 110 lber!  This one streaked off a couple hundred yards of line and we had to give it some juice chasing her.  She went over the flats and into another channel but we caught up and landed the fish.  Good boatside pictures of this one for the boys.  After that things quieted down some, a few more sharks and that was all.  We hit another channel and got a big bull shark to start off there that we chased down.  Then we had two smaller tarpon bites right in a row!  Small 30 lbers or so, but they both came unbuttoned fairly quick.  I thought we’d get a few more tarpon bites there but it wasn’t to be.  More sharks plenty of blacktips and one more big bull shark.  We moved around a little but no more tarpon love.  Though great day overall with 3 tarpon landed and 2 big girls!  Back at it tomorrow.  3 for 5

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

Got out with Mike and his dad for a full day of tarpon fishing in Islamorada.  We crushed the bait early this morning so we had that going for us.  Strange weather with a southeast breeze that swung around to hard north mid morning then let up nice for the afternoon.  Weak front hitting us.  We found a few tarpon early at the bridges but it was busy their with 8 boats lined up.  We had our shots though and landed 1 nice tarpon but didn’t get any pictures as it was tough around the bridges and boats for me to get it.  After that we had a few more cheap shots but nothing stuck.  We waited on the long tide change and moved around to the other side of the bridge.  Had one more bite there and had a cuda eat us off.  We tried another bridge and found some tarpon there too.  Had one big tarpon flash our bait but didn’t want to eat.  We then found a big ball of bait and reloaded the well and set back up in our original area.  We had one more tarpon bite here but jumped him off quickly unfortunately.  After that not much else happened, several nurse sharks on the bottom.  But at least we got one!  Back at it tomorrow think I’ll be going out into the backcountry winds should be back into the northeastern quadrant.  1 for 3

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

Got out with Carl and Buck again for their final day.  We decided to mix things up as the boys wanted to try some everglades snook fishing too.  There had been some bait around for that so we caught some early on and then headed out back.  Tarpon fished early on and found a good load of fish but the sharks were horrendous tough to keep a bait out.  We found an area where the sharks weren’t as bad and Buck had a couple tarpon bites but both of them didn’t stay on the hook for us.  A few more sharks and then Carl got a nice 75 lb tarpon!  We got him to the leader several times but he broke off before we could get a boat side pic but a legal catch anyhow.  After that we gave the snooks a try.  Had a couple good bites in one spot but didn’t connect and then the next few spots were empty.  The south breeze we had is not my favorite for snook fishing most of the areas I like, it’s just tough with that on shore wind.  We were gonna give it up but we decided to try one last spot and that had some nice fish!  We caught several big mangrove snappers, and one big 10 lb snook!  We missed another 4 or 5 snook too, they were all big and just hard to keep out of the trees especially with the current ripping like it was.  But good fun anyhow and we got one to the boat for pictures at least.  Back at it tomorrow.  1 for 3

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