Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Dave and Frank again for day two today.  Yesterday we had really good fishing but today the conditions definitely were changing.  A cold front is coming in, though the temperatures hadn’t dropped but the winds did swing around from southeast to northwest.  It wasn’t cranking though maybe 5-10 mph in the morning then picked up to 15 mph on the way home.  We made the long run to where we had caught the tarpon the last couple days.  Today though they up and disappeared!  That’s part of the gamble with that though… it can be absolutely epic or it can be listening to the crickets for hours.  We did manage to find one group of fish though but we didn’t get a bite out of them.  Though our sister boat that was fishing the other part of the party did catch one there at least.  We had a few sharks and rays too.  We tried a channel on the way home in the bay but no signs of life there, we fished it hard for 45 minutes and then called it a day.  With the temperatures dropping and the tarpon fishing being as fickle as it is, might give it a break for a few days until it gets nice again.  0 for 0

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

Got out for a full day with Frank and Dave, return customers of mine.  They also had some buddies fishing with fellow Capt. Jeff Beeler.  We stuck together for our day today and decided to go after some tarpon.  We caught bait early on, the bait was nice and easy considering how calm it was.  Loaded up and headed back to where we went yesterday.  A good ride close to 2 hours, but it was worth it again!  We found the tarpon all over there.  Fishing was a little better today actually, we didn’t have to move around and we ended up getting 4 tarpon bites.  Almost had a double header but Daves got off the hook after it bit right away!  But the boys each landed a 50 lb tarpon, and then Frank had another 80 or 90 lber that we got to the boat several times, but we broke him off on the leader trying to get him to jump for good footage, but a good release none the less.  We also caught a few sharks including a couple larger blacktips which was cool.  Not quite as many as yesterday either.  Anyways by 10:15 or so, it seemed to dry up and we didn’t see any tarpon around any longer.  We drove around for 20 minutes looking, but just not much happening.  Glad we got there when we did, we had a good 1.5 hour window that made for a fantastic day!  We finished up in the bay catching a few trout and snappers, it got rough again so too rough to look for tripletail.  Looks like we have a front coming in starting tomorrow.  It’s suppose to blow west but very light in the morning, so those fish may stick around for part of the day.  We have the same group tomorrow, and they wanna try it again, so we will likely go for it.  Fingers crossed they stay there!  But the tarpon bite will likely slow down over the weekend with temperatures dropping into the low 60s for several nights.  3 for 4

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

Got out with Irv today for a full day of backcountry tarpon fishing in the southwest Florida area.  I saw southwest florida as we made a long run about 50 miles in search of the silver king today.  The more local backcountry area hasn’t been great fishing this past week, lots of muddy water and a little algae I think too.  But we do have a cold front coming in this weekend which will hopefully help that somewhat.  We caught our bait early and headed far away.  We found plenty of tarpon in an area my buddy had told me about.  Good information is nice to have!  We hooked a big 150 lber on one of our first baits out!  Irv got him to the boat, a monster fish and we got good pictures.  We caught some sharks after that and then about an hour later, Irv hooked up another nice 110 lb fish.  This one fooled us I thought it was a shark he didn’t jump for a while.  We got her to the boat and then she took off and jumped and broke us off, but we had the leader in the rod tip for a technical release.  Later one some more sharks, and then we got one other nice 110 lb fish to finish the day of tarpon fishing!  Just epic for this time of year in February, doesn’t get any better then that!  We caught a few triple tails on the way home but the wind really kicked up hard and it got very rough, so we had to nix that idea.  Looks like we may get a couple calmer days here before the weekend, then Saturday night it’s suppose to drop down into the low 60s for a few days!  Late cold front but honestly I think we need it, it’s gotten way to hot too fast and that may hurt our tarpon fishing later in the late may/june time.  I was glad to finish February strong though it was a great month for us!  3 for 3

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