Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Mike today for a full day of tarpon fishing.  I had plenty of leftover bait from yesterday and am going out of town tomorrow for a few days, so didn’t have to bother with catching them.  We headed out to some channels I hadn’t fished in a while but heard some fish showed up there… we had a little time to wait for the tide change where I had been fishing anyways.  We pulled in and tarpon were rolling around.  The tide was just starting in here.  We sat for a bit waiting for the current to move.  The tarpon were a little finicky, had them roll right over our baits a few times but nothing.  After about 45 minutes and where I was almost ready to move around a bit, we hooked one and caught a nice 45 lb fish.  After that we got another about 55 lbs.  Mike had a blast fighting both of them.  Things quieted down after that, we had a few bonnet head sharks, and moved once where I had seen some tarpon rolling.  No more tarpon bites but we did get a couple big jack crevelles.  After that we headed inland and tried the other area where I’d been having good fishing.  Not much going on there today though didn’t see any tarpon rolling or splashing.  My buddy said he had jumped two nearby right when he pulled in but that was it.  We each made a couple moves without much but a few sharks.  We got a nice big triple tail though, and had some shots at some others but couldn’t connect but got a nice fish for dinner.  After that my buddy called me he had found some tarpon and caught a double header!  We headed over as he left, saw a couple fish roll after a bit.  But no bites there we moved a few times and fished hard, but sometimes you gotta be in the right place at the right time.  Anyways we hooked a big shark that cut us off and a sting ray, and ended up calling it a day.  2 for 2

I’m out of town like I said but later in August I still have some availability.  Tarpon fishing is possible all the way through October, and as I’ve said we had the best fishing we had all year last year in September and October.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Got out with Scott and Sherry down from Atlanta.  It was their 20th wedding anniversary and they wanted to try catching some tarpon – sounded like a great idea to me!  We headed out early and caught some bait on the way.  Bait was a little tougher we had the falling tide early on which has been a bit harder for our bait catching.  Just had to work at it and got extra messy with grass and weeds, but we got plenty of bait.  We caught the tide starting in when we got to our fishing area.  I didn’t see a whole lot of tarpon activity where we had been the last few days, so I slid further down just to fish some numbers where I’d figured they’d of been too.  We eventually saw a few roll and caught some sharks.  Then we pitched a bait out and Sherry hooked up a nice 75 lb tarpon almost instantly!  She fought him well and we got the leader to our rod tip, but he just wouldn’t roll over and unfortunately ended up throwing the hook before we could get some good boat side pictures.  But a legal catch none the less.  After that we caught a few more sharks, and then moved the boat over where we had seen more fish roll.  Soon after that it was Scotts turn and he hooked a fish of similar size.  This one fought very hard too we got him to the leader as well for an official catch, but this one we ended up just pulling the hook without a jump even.  Just bad luck for our boat side pictures today, but the fish don’t always cooperate for those!  But they got some good video of him and I got one decent jumping picture at least.  After that things slowed down for us we saw a couple triple tails but didn’t get a good shot at them, had a couple more shark and sting ray bites, and then some storms blew in and it started blowing like crazy right before it was time to head home.  Fishing seemed to slow down a little from what it was the last couple of days, but those days can spoil you as two tarpon in a day is always good with me.  Scott and Sherry said they’d be back with their son Zack next time to catch some more silver kings, I’m looking forward to it!  2 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Got out with Steve and Tim down from NY today for some tarpon fishing.  We headed out early and caught bait on the way.  Tarpon were right where we left them yesterday and we had a little northeasterly breeze this morning so I figured they might like that a little better then flat calm.  We had just an absolutely epic day!  They bit very well we never moved all day and had very good fishing with mostly big tarpon and some sharks.  We got one that was close to 130 or so very nice fish!  We also landed double header 100 lb tarpon which was exciting we had to chase them, unfortunately one broke off at the boat before we could get the double header picture but oh well that’s tough to do especially with 2 fish that big!  Had nice incoming tide all morning and the fishing just doesn’t get any better than that.  Hopefully those tarpon will stick around a few more days, then I’m out of town Saturday to Tuesday to watch the eclipse and visit some relatives.  The fishing may stay good all through August who knows, like I always say summer time and early fall are some of my favorite times of years to tarpon fish just because you usually have the good conditions and not near as much pressure on the fish.  6 for 8

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk