Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Rich and Luke Cromwell today.  We had a banner day catching all kinds of stuff including snook, triple tail, trout, cobia, and of course tarpon!  Figured it might be a little better today as the water was warmer and the winds were lighter and more out of the east.  We didn’t give it a shot until later in the day as I knew early on we’d have lame tide with a weak incoming.  We got their and found the tarpon still in the same area.  It wasn’t really easy we had to work at it and make several moves.  But after about 1.5 hours we finally fooled a nice 90 lb tarpon!  Luke fought him well and the silver king put on a good shot for us.  Lots of jumping and hard fighting.  We got him boatside after about a 30 minute battle, and he cooperated for nice pictures!  All in all a great day for Luke and his dad hopefully the fish will be as cooperative tomorrow.  Looks like we may get a couple more days of it staying just warm enough for a realistic shot at catching tarpon in december.  Friday night though another cold front back down in the 60s, and then it will get even colder the next several nights.  So that may be all she wrote for tarpon in our area until next year!  Will keep you all posted.  1 for 1

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

Got out with Mark and his sons Tyler and Steven today and we gave the tarpon a shot.  It was pretty good a few days ago before xmas as we had a warm streak.  Though last night a mild front came through and the temperatures dipped into the high 60s again… not too much of a change really but even a little bit can turn this fickle fishery (this time of year) off in a hurry.  We had a northerly wind in the morning, and the water temperatures did drop from the mid 70s to about 71.  We tried the tarpon early on and we did see a lot of fish, so they didn’t go anywhere.  But we had a weak tide and it took a while to turn.  Not much action to start with but after an hour or so the tide did start to move finally.  A few sharks, and we made 3 moves trying to get on hungry tarpon.  They really were all around us we saw a lot of fish rolling, busting, jumping, and marking them on the bottom.  But just wouldn’t bite!  The sharks did bite a little at least though.  We gave up after a couple hours and caught some mackerels in the gulf along with some tripletails.  We decided to try again in the afternoon as things warmed up slightly and the wind went more easterly.  I really thought they would bite a little bit then.  Though no luck the tarpon were still thick in the area, we must’ve seen hundreds of them.  But just not interested in eating any bait at least.  Plenty more blacktip sharks though and we called it a day.  Maybe tomorrow they will turn back on though we do have another front coming I think by the weekend, so we might get a couple more days of activity and that will likely shut it down.  0 for 0

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

Well the warm weather is sticking around thus far.  Tarpon in December in Islamorada are not an every day thing for sure.  But we have the right conditions now!  We went full tarpon mode today and caught some mullet on the way out.  Some nice muds and fairly easy to catch mullet which I love!  We hit the same area we found the tarpon at yesterday first thing today.  Fish were swarming… free jumpers, busters, rollers… everywhere and far out in the open water too.  They didn’t pull us out of the boat but we managed a couple bites and landed a big 150 lb fish and an 80 lb fish!  We also got a nice sawfish and a blacktip shark.  We did that few a couple hours and then the tide slowed and seemed like the fish kind of settled down, so we did some other stuff after that and had luck with mackerel, and a few redfish and snook to end the day.  Just incredible fishing right now.  We are getting a very mild front around christmas but only dropping like 4 or 5 degrees, so it may not move these tarpon around too much.  I have tomorrow morning open if anyone wants to go… I have bait and know where fish are, it should be good!  2 for 2

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