Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Well another few days of tarpon fishing in the books here in late May in Islamorada.  Monday and Tuesday we stuck around the bridges as I’ve been doing for the most part the last couple of months.  Not a ton of fish around though still a decent number though we had to move around and look for the right opportunities.  We had falling tide early on both days, Monday was slick calm too.  We didn’t do much early but when the tide started in around 9:30 we finally hooked a nice fish we caught.  About an hour later I’m fairly certain we got zipped by another one that broke us off.  Then finally right before it was time to call it a day we hooked another one we caught.  No boatside pictures though leader releases on both those fish.  We did catch a handful of mutton snappers, jacks, and nurse sharks too.  Tuesday we had a tad bit of wind but more or less the same fishing.  We caught one fish on the last of the falling tide and then another one later on when the tide came in same thing about 30 minutes before it was time to go.  Only two bites on that day.  So tough fishing but if you put the time in you can still catch ’em.  Wednesday I had the same crew as Tuesday and decided to go run in the backcountry and see about tarpon back there.  We had seen some last week when I was fishing with my dad though didn’t actually try to catch them.  We found a huge school of mullet which was good to see and caught some on our way.  The tarpon were in the same relative area today.  We saw a few splashing around early on but didn’t get any bites aside from blacktip sharks and a huge lemon shark the first couple hours.  Then when the tide switched we ran a bit further away a couple miles and found a few more splashing.  We set up and moved a couple times then had a nice pack drift by us and caught a nice 45 lber.  After that we slid further down and caught another 65 lber nice summer time fish.  We looked around a bit more but didn’t have much else happen.  We tried a few spots for big snook but no luck with that either.  We did have a southwest wind not blowing hard but not an ideal wind for sure but at least it was good to see some tarpon back there.  Seeing that, the big school of mullet, and the nicer color of the water bodes well for our summer time fishing I hope maybe June, July, and August will be productive back there this year as the last couple of years the summer time fishing has been mediocre I will say.  I’m off for a little bit but Capt. Stephen is available on my vessel.  I am fishing a handful of my regulars in June but he will be running the boat the rest of the time.  I’ve started bringing him on some backcountry trips with my dad and he came today so he’ll be dialed in to my summer time routine back there.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina

It’s middle of May and we’re still grinding away on the tarpon!  Fishing overall has been OK I’ll say.  Most days we’ve still been having to work a fair bit at it to get a handful of bites.  Though conditions have been fairly good overall now as it seems we’re starting to get somewhat calmer consistent weather out of the southeasterly direction for wind.  The forecast right now is 10mph and under for the foreseeable future so that should be a good thing!  Bait has started to get a little tougher so I’m buying it when I can if I know I have trips coming up and we’re catching it as best we can too to keep up with our needs.  I only fished one day last week on Wednesday but we had a decent day getting about 5 bites I believe.  We had 3 fish up on the wind-on leader though weren’t able to get any rolled over for pictures.  Jumped a couple off, had a hook break on one, and a couple others swam into the bridge.  Just one of those days but still decent action and lots of fun.  We had a good amount of mutton snapper bites as well which was cool too.  Capt. Stephen ran the boat today (Saturday) and just fished a last minute half day this morning but he had a couple tarpon bites and got one on the wind-on leader as mentioned but he got tangled up in the bridge when they were trying to get her rolled over.  But a good catch none the less along with some nurse sharks and muttons he said too.  There were still plenty of fish down at the bridges and I think we’ll have good shots at them for a bit longer here and the nice thing is there hasn’t been a ton of pressure.  A lot of guys are doing other things because fishing has been a little tougher for the tarpon.  Though with my boat we fish hard using the trolling motor and sophisticated electronics so we can pretty much always find the fish just a matter of getting them to bite.  Capt. Stephen is now available to run the boat any day with exception to Thursdays and Sundays, and he’ll do evening trips as well any evening but Sundays.  I am still taking bookings on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays though if Steve gets booked first he’ll take the day.  I have the 29th, 30th and 31st open myself this month and will likely be taking a few taking a few June trips next week though as mentioned Capt. Stephen will book a June trip any time now.  Give me a shout if you want to get something on the books for June I’m likely only going to fish a handful of trips and then let Capt. Stephen run the boat the rest of the time.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina

Fished with my dad and my new Capt. Stephen last week.  This was right after a day when they were chewin’ there butts off.  We worked hard to catch a couple… but that’s how tarpon fishing goes!  This video was shot by Landon our new videographer and he’ll be riding with me on occasion making videos like this.

This week we tarpon fished a couple days.  We had a crazy windstorm event on Sunday with 30+ mph winds that really stirred things up.  Monday was much nicer but a bit of a northwest breeze and things cool off believe it or not.  Tarpon weren’t super happy but we managed to catch a couple out of 3 or so bites I think.  Hard day where we had to grind but had the bridges to ourselves more or less.  Tuesday was slicked out flat calm.  Things started a little slow for us but we saw tarpon rolling everywhere.  After some persistence and jumping around a bit for an hour or so we started getting bit.  A few good rallies here & there and we ended up getting 4 tarpon to the leader.  None boatside unfortunately but close.  I think we had 8 or so bites total so pretty good fishing overall and again hardly a sole fishing at the bridge which was nice.  Today I had my same anglers from the previous day and even though I’m not usually doing anything but tarpon fishing now this time of year I did give them the option to try permit fishing in the gulf as it was one of my regulars who hadn’t had that opportunity before.  We didn’t have super good conditions but we had pretty good fishing landing 3 permit and losing a few others to sharks and breakoffs.  I have a few days open left in May I really can’t say what to expect at this point but there are still a good number of fish around and the bridges are generally not too busy as lots of guides are doing other things so at least you have that going for you.  Capt. Trentin has plenty of dates available too and has been catching fish too and doing a little different routine fishing some local canals and stuff.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina

Here’s the YouTube video from last week.  If you really would like our videographer to ride along on your fishing day let me know.  I’ll be asking my regulars and clients when it’s only one or two people on occasion, but if you want to request it I’ll see if I can make it happen.

And also here are a few clips from this weeks action…