Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Howard and Mike, repeat customers from last year, for a full day of backcountry fishing.  We planned to mix it up a bit but tarpon was definitely on the list.  We caught pilchards to start our day and tried to get in on the little tarpon that were biting a few days before.  Today however it seemed to be a different day, the little tarpon were there but not feeding very actively.  We did manage a few mangrove snappers in that spot though.  We then hit the gulf to do some mackerel fishing and did OK with that and then went after some larger tarpon.  The tide was turned and coming in now as we got to the channels.  I didn’t see a whole lot of activity, we scoped out a few areas and I found one spot that I favored.  We set up and Howard ended up getting a nice cobia to start things off, about a 30 lber!  After that we saw a few tarpon free jump further down the channel so we packed up and moved.  Mike had a tarpon bite soon after, about a 40 lb fish not as big as we are use to this time of year.  Unfortunately he jumped towards the boat and never got the hook in a good spot.  A little later I think we had another tarpon zip us too but not sure exactly if it was.  Our sister boat though did catch a big 140 lb tarpon next to us they were fishing the same group as me.  We ended up catching a few more sharks and hooked what I think was a big sawfish, but he cut us off.  So the tarpon won today but we had some good action anyways and all around a great day.  Hopefully they’ll be more cooperative tomorrow!  0 for 1

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

Got out with Bill and Elaine today.  We mixed it up and tried several different things.  I told them the last couple days were slow though we were fishing for certain things, so today I recommended just going fishing were what was biting.  We planned to keep it simple but we ended up getting some quality fish.  We found some juvenile tarpon around some islands and they were biting a little bit.  We caught a couple and had a couple more bites we missed.  The one we got to the boat for pictures was nice about 15 lbs or so, great fun on light tackle.  These fish will hopefully stick around they are good to have on days when you need them.  Aside from the tarpon we also caught nice mangrove snappers, a couple snook, redfish, and some mackerels, blue runners, and juvenile groupers in the gulf.  It was a great day!  Off tomrrow but hopefully the winds will swing more easterly as forecast and the big tarpon bite should improve, there are definitely fish around with as warm as it has been.  2 for 4

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

Got out with Paul and Peter over from Sweden.  They really wanted to fish for tarpon.  I told them the bite wasn’t red hot but we may get a shot or two if we were lucky, and they were game.  Conditions weren’t great we had a ripping 20-25mph southeast wind again.  Nothing seems to have been real happy since that started the day before.  Bait was difficult we had leftovers luckily and managed to catch a half dozen fresh ones.  We fished where we had been finding tarpon the last several times.  Not much out there though we saw a handful in the first stop, but no bites not even a shark bite.  We moved around a bit to where I had caught one a few days before, and again had a few fish around the boat I think that I could see on my sonar, but no action with tarpon.  We did catch a nice blacktip shark.  Water was super muddy with the southeast wind so the fish weren’t showing on top at all really.  We stopped and did catch a nice snook on a spot real quick before checking some other channels.  The other channel again I think there may have been a couple fish around, but no action but we did get a big sting ray.  After that we headed back to try locally around town.  I stopped and caught a few more mullet on the way home so we had some fresh bait again.  We hit a local channel and found a ton of tarpon rolling around.  As far as I could see up and down the channel, must’ve been hundreds of fish in there.  Unfortunately though I had the feeling we were just seeing too many on the surface, doing the high roll, tail slapping thing they often do when they aren’t happy.  They really weren’t we made a couple moves and fished very hard, but didn’t get a bite out of them, though we literally had them rolling between our baits and 10 feet from the boat at times.  Can be frustrating when that happens!  We did catch a jack crevelle and then called it a day.  Oh well that is fishing and especially tarpon fishing in February, if the conditions aren’t favorable sometimes they just aren’t going to respond.  Anyways looks like the winds are suppose to swing more easterly/northeasterly after tomorrow and then may be under 10 mph for the weekend which would be very nice.  Hopefully things will improve a little bit.  I’ll be sticking to simple fishing tomorrow I think, may give the tarpon at try for a little while, and then off for the next day or two.  0 for 0

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