Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out today with my good customers the Thompsons.  We fished the backcountry as last time we were out we had found a decent number of fish back there and it’s that time of year that sometimes its nice to transition to backcountry fishing as opposed to the bridges.  It’s remained fairly calm though we had a little tad bit of a southerly breeze which isn’t our favorite but luckily it wasn’t blowing hard.  Tarpon were actually fairly plentiful early on we saw some rolling and a handful free jumping and busting.  We got into them pretty good and I was seeing quite a few on the sonar as well as with my eyes.  I thought we’d get bit up but the tarpon weren’t too responsive really.  We jumped around and fished hard for 2 hours catching plenty of sharks including a few hammerheads which was cool.  We had several times where I marked fish literally swimming right near our baits, and even rolled on the surface right over top.  If you were a betting man that was the time you’d bet on getting a bite for sure!  But they just weren’t having it.  Finally after moving 6 or 7 times and putting in a good solid couple of hours we hooked a fish.  We fought him for a minute or two but unfortunately he jumped off, though the next bait out we hooked another one and landed him… alright on the board!  Tarpon fishing can be like that you can have fish all over and when they don’t want to play you just have to keep grinding.  After that we switched gears and gave the big snook a try and ended up actually catching a couple more tarpon while we were doing that which was unexpected.  But nice smaller size fish on the lighter tackle was great fun and we also got a couple of big snook too.  So all in all a great day and quality over quantity but totally worth it for my guys!

Capt. Stephen has been fishing with me several times out back recently and I’ve been dialing him in on my tarpon routine for the summer time.  I’m pretty much all booked up myself for June but he has dates available for sure.  If you want to get out chasing tarpon the next few months give me a shout and if I can’t take you I can put you with him and as mentioned he’s been seeing exactly how I fish and really learning my methods so you’ll be in great hands.

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

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