Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Dan, Julie, and Sophie today down from Wisconsin.  They hadn’t been to the Keys before and had the opportunity to come.  We had planned on a full day excursion but we had some nasty weather about.  Prefrontal with some rain and lightning.  But it cleared up enough to make it out in the morning.  I caught bait early my first early morning mullet run this year.  We tried for tarpon to start and found quite a few locally.  We hooked a big one after 20 minutes or so.  She screamed off 150 yards of line and we gave chase.  Julie hooked it but she had a bit of a leg injury so was tough for her to maneuver around in the chair so we passed it off to Dan.  After the long run and a couple jumps she just dug in and we chased her around for over an hour.  We finally got her to subdue and got some good boat side pictures.  Nice 100 lb fish!  After that we set back up, the tide had changed and the fish seemed to have kind of dispersed at that point.  We did hook a cuda that we fought for a minute before cutting us off.  We moved out to another area and saw a few more tarpon.  But no more bites out of them though we did catch some big jack crevelle, and Sophie got an atlantic sharpnose shark.  She really wanted to catch a shark so mission accomplished!  We ran into the marina to use the bathroom and headed back out for some light tackle fishing after that.  Plenty of action on the patch reefs before the weather chased us back in as another frontal line approached.  But we got most of our day in at least.  Looks like it’ll be cooling down into the 50s the next three nights, so that will likely make the big tarpon fishing a little slow for the week.  Hopefully by next week they will start chewing again.  We got lucky yesterday and it was flat calm so things really had a chance to warm up fast.  I didn’t tarpon fish yesterday but I heard there were a few caught, but glad we gave it a go today.  1 for 1

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

Well we are getting all of our february weather here now in early march!  We’ve had a couple late cold fronts hit us right in a row, with another one coming in on Tuesday for several nights to drop us back into the 50s!  The last front a couple nights ago did the same thing and water temperatures dropped down to the low 60s, really stifling the tarpon bite.  We mixed it up the last couple days and went back to full on ‘winter time’ mode, fishing in the deeper everglades creeks and canals with our shrimp and jigs.  We actually got lucky and caught a baby tarpon both days, one a little 10 lber and then the next day a 30 lber.  Fishing was not red hot though we were lucky to get each of those as both my anglers wanted a tarpon.  Other then that we caught a good load of trout both days, the first day we also got a snook and a handful of black drum, the second day we caught another 5 snook or so.  Definitely was crowded back there on the saturday with the weather as it was.  Today on Sunday I have a half day and will not likely be tarpon fishing as the water temperatures are still low… it might be possible as now the winds have swung around and it will warm up slightly before the next front.  But I know my anglers are more into action and conditions won’t really be great, but at least I’d say there would be a shot.  Anyways with the next front coming in and it staying in the 50s for a couple nights, looks like this week will be slow again on the tarpon front.  Maybe by the weekend if we get back to 80 degree weather it will pick up again.  But honestly it’s a good needed break as we were hitting them hard all of February and we don’t want to put them down for later in the season!  1 for 1 and 1 for 1

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

Got out with Dave and Nick down from Maine for a half day trip.  We had another cold front come in the night before and dropped the temperatures down into the 60s, with the water temps getting to 69 locally.  The boys wanted some action so I didn’t recommend dedicating our trip to tarpon as that big temperature swing can definitely give them lockjaw.  We fished the patch reefs and it wasn’t easy out there but we caught a variety of things including hogfish, grouper, and snapper.  We did try for the last hour for a tarpon in some of the local channels as I had some bait saved from a couple days before.  We did see plenty of fish rolling when we arrived.  We caught the tide change and I thought maybe with the tide coming in and slightly warming up with the warmer atlantic water coming into the channel we might have a shot.  But unfortunately it didn’t happen.  After 40 minutes or so we didn’t see many of the fish any longer, I gave it some extra time for the guys since it was just a half day.  We did get a big jack crevelle and an atlantic sharpnose shark.  But that was it.  I talked to a buddy of mine who was fishing the other end of the channel on the bayside, he said the same thing he saw plenty of tarpon for a while but no love out of them.  Anyways another front came in and now temperatures dropped to 55 overnight… real winter weather again brrr!  It will slightly warm up but then another front on Tuesday, so I wouldn’t expect good tarpon fishing again until maybe at the end of the week or next weekend – IF we don’t have any more cold fronts come in!  Lots of winter weather the last week with 3 fronts in a row… where was all this weather in February!  0 for 0

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