Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Brandon and Chad today down from Georgia.  Tarpon was the desired species.  It was fairly windy with a north breeze when we got into the backcountry that turned to south/southeast later in the day.  Mullet were hard to come by we had to work hard but were able to put a good catch of bait together.  Rain was chasing us around too.  We tried fishing the area where there’d been some fish early in the morning, saw one jumper.  We set up but the rains came and I decided to just boogey where I had good tarpon action the few days before where there was no rain.  We got out there and saw some tarpon – good sign.  But we weren’t able to get them to respond, we moved several times, got in front of some good schools, but just no bites.  After a while they seemed to disappear too, as I’d been seeing them rolling and splashing a lot every time i’d been out there, so when it went quite I was worried.  We looked further down the mainland, but didn’t see much for tarpon life.  I then tried some other channels that I hadn’t fished the last few weeks since my routines been working.  Though those areas all seemed dead… we fished 3 different channels, and idled through another one, and never saw a tarpon for sure.  We caught a few sharks, and a big sting ray, and that was it.  Anyways we worked hard at it and went through a lot of bait, hopefully it gets a little easier.  I’m off tomorrow, then just a half day on Saturday, should be back to the tarpon grind on Sunday.  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Got out with David and his sons Tanner and Hunter over from Texas today.  Tarpon was on the agenda and we focused on that early.  Caught some bait on the way out it was a little easier than yesterday, but not as much as I normally like to see with the nice incoming tide we had.  But we got enough.  No tarpon early on I tried the area we were yesterday morning, never saw any rollers but did see a few busts and thought I had marked a few, but no bite.  We did get a few sharks and a ray.  After an hour or so and a couple moves, the tide quit so we ran out to the west to try.  Got right on top of a big herd of tarpon and we were able to actually fish away from the little shark craziness which was nice.  It was funny the sharks were nearby but we found a small patch of water where they just weren’t really messing with us, and the tarpon were there, so that made life easy for a little while.  The boys each caught a nice tarpon, dad unfortunately jumped both of his off.  After that though the tarpon disappeared, though there were still some out in the sharky area though they were too hard to get past.  After that we checked a few wrecks for permit, but no love, and we called it a day.  2 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Got out with Dave and Donna today, Dave is from Florida but hadn’t caught a tarpon yet.  We were able to get a good toss on some fresh mullet early on.  With the incoming tides now the morning bait should be a bit easier for the week.  We found a few tarpon early on and caught the tide change.  Ended up hooking one soon but unfortunately the line got caught in the bottom and he pulled off.  When the tide started going we caught a few sharks, then Dave hooked a nice 70 lb fish that we landed!  Good jumps and nice fight.  We tried a bit longer but no more luck.  Looked in some other nearby areas without much luck.  We ran out west to try the mainland areas, saw a big mud with a few fish busting in it and a lot of bait.  But never had a bite but did get a shark.  Then the last couple hours we found a ton of fish where they had been the last few times I was, along with a TON of little sharks again.  It was very hard to get through the sharks, we kept moving and trying but it was shark city.  We tried throwing artificials and even some crabs but no love, but we finally did get another tarpon on our mullet right before it was time to go.  Got him to the boat but he jumped off before we could get pics, but a technical release.  All in all a fun day and Dave was glad to get his bucket list fish.  2 for 3

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk