Capt. Rick Stanczyk's 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

Got out with Duane, Diana, and their grandson Gilly today for a full day.  It was flat calm and gorgeous out, very spring-like conditions as things warmed up considerably from a week ago.  But the water was still in the low to mid 70s.  Tarpon often show up on days like this seemingly from nowhere.  I mentioned it to the crew and we figured we may give it a shot at some point during the day.  We caught plenty of mackerels in the morning and a few tripletails running the buoy lines in the gulf.  We checked one area for tarpon but didn’t see any signs of them.  When its slick calm, usually you can see them as they disturb the surface easily and can’t hide so easily.  We ran and checked another channel and as soon as I stopped the boat I started marking fish on the sonar!  After 10 minutes or so we started seeing them roll.  Not a giant school but probably 3 dozen or so.  We caught a few big blacktip sharks, but kept at it and eventually hooked a nice 100 lb tarpon!  It was a good fight and we landed him in about 25 minutes.  Unfortunately we didn’t get any good boatside pictures as we pulled the hook while he was on the leader, but a good technical catch anyhow as we had him on the leader boatside.  After that the tarpon kind of dissapated there were still a few around, but we didn’t get any more bites.  Saw a couple more boats show up and they didn’t have much luck but I know after we left one of them caught one too.  We did get 3 sawfish though which was really cool!  All in all a great day I think the tarpon will likely stick around until it gets cold or really windy again, but maybe through the weekend at least!  1 for 1

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