Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

4/3/18 – Got out with Terrence and his son Shavon for a full day of tarpon fishing.  The bite was really good we got a couple fish landed early on in the first hour.  We moved around a bit and then jumped off 4 fish in a row so a little bad luck on hooking them there.  But good action overall!  We ended up getting another big tarpon after that a 120 lber.  We had a few sharks after that and then when the tide started in we had one more tarpon bite that we missed right before it was time to go home.  3 for 8

4/4/18 – Got out with Al and Walt today for a full day.  Little tougher today for us it’s gotten so busy in the areas I like to fish just absolutely crazy loaded with boats.  I haven’t seen it so busy like that in my life… can’t wait until the fishing around town turns on more so hopefully they’ll dissipate some!  Anyways we had some sharks early, had tarpon around us but they didn’t bite for us.  My buddy got in the right place though and he had quite a few bites fishing the other part of the party we had.  We tried setting up nearby but wasn’t happening for us.  I finally went and tried somewhere else by myself and we got into a good school.  Al landed a nice 150 lb fish.  Then we jumped another one off.  Then Walt got one that was almost the same size!  Both big fish took a good 45 minutes to land.  We jumped one more fish off after that.  Then things dried up we caught a few more sharks and then ran out of bait and called it a day.  Caught some bait on the way home for tomorrow as I have this crew again.  Getting out early tomorrow to beat the crowds hopefully get a good hour in before everybody shows up.  2 for 4

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

Got out for a 3/4 day with Dirc and his daughter Rae.  Tarpon was the requested fish and we already had a good amount of bait from the previous day.  We headed out into the backcountry and had a little early start which was nice.  The tarpon were right where we left them still a huge school of fish.  We got a nice 150 lber early on for Rae, a whopper fish!  Good fight we had it on the leader several times and almost got it to roll over for a picture but one more good kick of the tail and it broke off around the motor.  After that we moved a little and got into a few smaller fish.  Dad got a nice 50 lber and Rae got another 60 and 80 lber there!  Also a few blacktip sharks.  The tide slowed down around 11:00 or so and that was right about time for us to go so we headed on back home.  Just fabulous fishing hopefully it stays like this for a while, but there were quite a few boats back there so it might get a little tougher after a few more days of fish getting stuck.  But you have to enjoy it while you can!  4 for 6

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

Tarpon fishing was pretty epic today as I figured it would be.  I had Tom, Michelle, and their son Noah out for the full day.  We had bait already packed away and headed out around 6:45.  We found a ton of tarpon that had moved in to some of the channels.  It was non stop action everybody caught a couple tarpon plus a few sharks!  This was all by 10:45 too in just under 3 hours of fishing!  After the tide quit it slowed up a little and the family wanted to do some other stuff.  So we finished the day catching some trout on popping corks with artificials.  Banner day for tarpon fishing in April in Islamorada, what a way to start the month!  The rest of the week looks to be similar conditions, and right on through the weekend actually.  I think it’ll stay good for a while until this group of fish moves out to spawn.  But overall I think it’s going to be a great year!  6 for 6

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