Capt. Rick Stanczyk's 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

Got out with Russell and his son Max for a full day of florida keys tarpon fishing.  Winds slicked out and I knew it was going to be good…  We headed out into the backcountry with a load of bait.  Found a ton of tarpon in the first stop – great sign!  We had falling tide and we set up.  Max had the hot stick he ended up catching three tarpon and jumped another one!  Dad had one bite but he missed it.  We caught a couple sharks as well.  As the tide slowed and the bite died down some, we decided to check another area.  I was interested to look where we had found our fish yesterday afternoon.  We headed there and the tide was just starting to change.  But the tarpon were there!  They weren’t quite as happy as yesterday we had to really put some time in and move around, but we had good shark action with some big blacktips and lemon sharks.  Russell jumped a nice tarpon eventually.  Then after a couple more moves and just about our last bait out, we hooked a big lemon that Max was fighting.  While we fought that, Russell hooked a nice 90 lb tarpon!  He stayed on the hook this time and we landed both fish.  Russell was thrilled to land his first tarpon.  Great fishing and looks like the weather will stay nice throughout most of the week, so I think the next few days will be really good for tarpon.  Back at it tommorrow.  4 for 7

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

Got out with Aaron and Beth today for a full day of tarpon fishing in Islamorada.  We caught a little bit of bait early though had a good amount already.  We made a far run into the ‘glades as I told them we had conditions where that made sense.  With the south wind and all I knew some areas that would be more protected and have clean water so we ran a ways.  We stopped along the way where we had seen some tarpon but no bites there though did get a shark.  Once we got to the next area we had a bunch of sharks to start.  Thought it might of been a bust but eventually saw some tarpon showing and had to move around.  As soon as we reset Beth hooked a nice 90 lb tarpon straight away!  Another boat came in behind us and they also hooked up almost instantaneously!  We both fought our fish and landed them, then went to reset.  But by that time it seemed the big body of fish had already moved on!  It was surprising as there seemed to be a lot of fish there.  We saw a handful more but only had some more shark bites after that.  We ran back towards home and tried another area on the way home.  Did see a few tarpon and set back up and here the fishing got better and better!  We had another 5 tarpon bites here!  Unfortunately they weren’t staying on the hook very good for us, Beth jumped some smaller guys and Aaron had one he jumped off, and then one he technically landed as we got it to the boat on the wind-on leader.  But the fish never jumped and we thought it was a shark so as soon as we got it boat side, it took off and went under the boat and got wrapped around the motor.  When the fish felt all this pressure it finally decided to jump and show that it was a tarpon but unfortunately ended up throwing the hook!  Sometimes those technical releases make leave you wanting more but thats the way she goes sometimes.  We gave it a little extra time and had one more tarpon bite we missed and then a few larger sharks.  Anyways it was great to have such good action throughout the day and I think the tarpon are going to be very good for the next week or so here while the weather is nice.  Back at it tomorrow!  2 for 6

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