Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out for the last two days with the Purcell group from England.  We had the edge of hurricane Idalia come by us a week ago and it brought a fair amount of rain and bit of wind that’s persisted since.  Water temps in the bay dropped from around 90 to 81 or so.  Definitely a bit of a ‘fall’ feel to things with the slight cooloff.  The last two days we had a fairly stiff northeast breeze to start that swung east later in the day.  First day we caught pilchards near home and did some light tackle fishing most of the day.  Snook fishing was decent and we also caught a small tarpon while doing that.  Mid day we put the big tarpon gear out and hooked a couple tarpon doing that.  One of them was a big 100 lber and he went right through the leader as we were rigged up for the smaller 30-40 lb fish which are typically much more prevalent now.  Though we got a 2nd chance and hooked a nice 30 lber right after that.  We landed him but weren’t able to get pictures unfortunaly.  Day 2 we just focues on the big rods for the most part.  Fished a different area and found some tarpon spread out.  They weren’t showing too much but with advanced sonar we were able to line up on them and get a few bites!  We caught a nice one to start and then next move we hooked another one that threw the hook unfortunately.  Caught a few sharks and then after one more move we got one more tarpon which was great!  We gave it a little bit more but no more tarpon love though we did get a few more sharks.  We moved back to where we had fished the day before and found a group of roaming fish right in the same area we had our hookups the day before.  That’s the power of fishing multiple days you just find little tid bits like that and can help you in future fishing!  Anyways we set up and had to give it a little time but after about 20 minutes we hooked a double header tarpon!  Very cool and we were able to land both fish and get a cool picture.

Anyways fishing can be good through September.  I’ve been fishing a few trips since Capt. Stephen is out of town.  I may take a few more trips if you are looking to go later this month give me a shout.  Steve will be back on in October and that is one of my favorite months of the year to fish.  Just lots of bait around and the more typical northeasterly breezes.  Lots of tarpon heading south too as it cools off up north.

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

Capt. Trent has been getting out lately and still had some good tarpon fishing on some local trips fishing half and 3/4 days.  Just got this report from him this afternoon saying they caught 4 out of 5 his trip today!  Bait was readily available still which is nice especially this time of year and the tarpon were really happy.  It was fairly calm and hot as has been the case often recently though they did end up getting rained on a little bit which wasn’t such a bad thing.  The way things are shaping up we should still have some decent tarpon fishing through August and September and it’s a lot slower with people down here then too so you can pick & choose your days a little more if weather is an issue etc…  I myself haven’t fished a ton lately as I’ve been home helping my wife with a broken ankle, but the few times I fished in July we did have some tarpon action in the backcountry as well as really good snook fishing.  Capt. Stephen is back from the Bahamas and has a few trips booked this next coming week and I have a couple myself so I’ll post some more reports in a week or so.  Though I know through July there was a good number of finger mullet in the backcountry which had good numbers of snook and small tarpon around them.  If you want to get a trip set up give me a shout me or one of the guys can get you out there!

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

Well I got out yesterday on a short notice trip in the backcountry.  Wasn’t quite sure what to expect but we’ve had prevailing calm, warm weather.  Which if you can take the heat isn’t always a bad thing fishing wise.  We played it safe and spent some time looking for bait early.  Was able to catch a few local mullet as well as some small pilchards.  We ran out into the backcountry with snook really on the agenda.  Jumped around a few spots on the high water without too much luck aside from a small redfish.  Then on the 3rd stop we got into a few snook and managed to hook a nice small juvenile tarpon we landed.  We had to literally pull him out of the mouth of some aggressive lemon sharks.  They’ve been very bad lately so definitely be careful when you are fishing in the backcountry waters.  After that we made a little longer run that I like this time of year and sure enough it was absolutely loaded with all sizes of mullet.  Tarpon were  there too we ended up throwing the net for  3rd round and caught nice small finger mullets which were really what I was looking for.  Caught another tarpon there live lining one of those guys out which was fun.  We landed him right in time to run to another spot where I hoped we would bail the snook… as another boat had just showed up and I figured he might be going to the same spot.  But we got in there and caught a good 15 or so snook and then caught a nice big one to end the trip.  So it’s great to see so much bait around and some tarpon too plus good snook fishing.  I may take a few more trips this month but also Capt. Brandon and Capt. Trentin are at the ready to go.  The local tarpon fishing has been pretty good too I know both those guys have been catching multiple smaller tarpon each trip lately and again the bait is fairly consistent.  We often try to stay ahead of it with a cooler of dead baits just so we don’t get stuck.  But if you are in town and want to go tarpon fishing in July in Islamorada, give me a a shout and we’ll get you out on the water and as mentioned fishing and weather is good for it.

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