Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Chester and his son Mike today, return clients who have fished with me several times over the last few years.  Tarpon was on the agenda.  I told them the last day I fished things got tough all of a sudden… weird wind directions (southwest) and the big groups of fish we’d been seeing the last month or two had kind of disappeared.  Today unfortunately was more or less a repeat of what we had the other day.  I tried mixing up my routine a little and tried some different spots.  We had good shark activity and got some blacktips and a hammer head early.   Moved a bit down the channel and did see a tarpon appear which we moved in the vicinity of.  Unfortunately no response though we did get another shark.  We moved out of that area and went back to where I’d been fishing mostly the last month.  Didn’t see a whole lot we tried a few areas that had been producing for me, one where we saw a good group of fish the last time I was out.  Nothing today though but a few more sharks.  We tried another channel mouth… not much happening.  One boat was further in the channel, we saw them hook a tarpon and then jump off another one.  We ran and got in that area, though seemed to be short lived we didn’t see any tarpon and they didn’t report seeing any more either and left.  We went up to the very end of the channel to try, did see one tarpon roll and I got excited again thinking maybe we’d get into a good school to finish the day… but no luck we did get plenty of blacktips and some spinner sharks though.  So again very few tarpon to report but a little bit of good news is another boat I talked to at the end of the day did say they saw a good group of fish in a channel I don’t normally fish a lot.  Will probably give that a look tomorrow as we are back at it, hopefully things get a little better.  I think it will once the winds swing back around to the east, kind of a double whammy right now of not good wind direction and not a lot of fish around.  Anyways glad the sharks kept us busy hopefully tomorrow will be better!  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Slow morning for us today I had Brian out from Oklahoma. Winds were light south and then turned more west and kicked up late morning, and had to dodge around a good bit of weather. Didn’t see a whole lot of tarpon but we did get into one good group that i would’ve sworn we’d of gotten a bite out of but they just weren’t happy and seemed to disappear as quickly as we found them. First day in a good while that we didn’t even get a bite but I guess I was probably overdue!  But we caught plenty of large blacktips and a few other critters to keep us busy. Anyways taking a day off tomorrow and then back at it Saturday for a few days.  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Just got back from vacation last night and back to work this morning.  Had a nice visit to Kentucky for the eclipse and to see some family.  I had Tommy and Bill over from Texas for a 3/4 day.  Conditions looked good today very light winds, they called for rain which we had a little of later on in the day but didn’t mess up our fishing.  We caught bait on the way out no problem and got to fishing the channels with the very start of the falling tide.  We didn’t see a whole lot early on, fished where I had seen one roll and we had a few big blacktip sharks, moved around a bit after we saw a bust a little later, and more sharks.  Saw a few roll in a channel nearby and we made our way over there.  Once we got settled in, some more fish started to pop up.  They weren’t super happy but eventually we got a bite though unfortunately he threw the hook after a few jumps.  We shook it off and got back to it, after a little longer we hooked another tarpon.  Smaller guy about 30 lbs, I got off the anchor right away and we got him to the boat quickly on the leader for a technical catch, but unfortunately we didn’t get the rod tip high enough to clear the poling platform and he got wrapped up around that and broke off.  Sometimes those tarpon are sneaky!  After that we moved around again and had a couple more shark bites.  We made one last move where I saw a tarpon roll off in the distance a few times, and had one more nice tarpon there.  This one stayed on and we chased him down a nice 50 lber.  We got him up on the wind on leader next to the boat and looked like he was slowing down and would cooperate for a picture, but this time the hook just pulled.  Have had some bad luck with pulling hooks the last few trips.  Anyways another technical release but I’m sure the guys would’ve loved some pictures, unfortunately sometimes the fish have other idea.  We had a good time and the action was pretty steady between the tarpon and sharks so we’ll take it.  Back at it again tomorrow but I’m open Friday and Sunday if anyone is looking to go, good tides the next several days for catching bait which can be the hardest part of the trip this time of year, so if you want to go give me a shout!  2 for 3

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Here is a little video clip from last week’s tarpon fishing with Mike McKenstry.