Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

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

Got out with Eugene and his son Colton today for a full day.  They were down from Maryland area and Colton had just gotten out of the airforce.  We planned to do kind of a mixed bag day but tarpon were on the agenda.  We caught a handful of baits this morning, with the falling tides in the AM bait hasn’t been real easy.  Being Saturday there were a lot of boats out on the water too, unfortunately a few already fishing in the spots where I’d been catching bait.  Luckily I had a few good packs of frozen extras to supplement.  We checked out where the area where the tarpon had been last week and the other day, but didn’t see much activity and since they didn’t bite there the other day I said lets move on.  We stopped to hang the chum bag and caught some live pilchards as well as a few trout on our light tackle while doing that.  We hit the area where we had found tarpon yesterday afternoon and still had the morning falling tide.  We caught a tarpon right away and then the sharks ate us up.  We tried moving around a little, but no more tarpon action and the tide soon died out.  We hit a few snook spots, but not much was happening with them.  Funny because we had such good bait, but just not many snook around right now even the guys I’ve talked to who do that a lot more haven’t been finding many.  We decided to try the tarpon again when the tide switched.  We got in front of a hungry pack and had a good little rally, landing one more tarpon and then we jumped off 3 more.  Even had a couple bites on our live baits which was fun but unfortunately they came unbuttoned.  The sharks eventually moved in and tore us up, again we tried moving around a little bite no more luck.  Didn’t seem to be quite as many tarpon as the other day.  We finished the day hitting a couple more snook spots, and managed to catch Colton one finally in the last stop.  All in all a fun day, really had to work very hard for a handful of fish, but sometimes that is what it takes.  Hopefully the little sharks move on soon.  I have a half day tomorrow just action fishing, and Monday back to the tarpon game.  We will have incoming tides very early which should make the bait catching much easier for the coming week, thankfully!  2 for 5

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Lance and his sons Black and Grant today and tarpon was on their list.  We caught a little bit of bait early and had some leftovers from a couple days ago.  Got lucky to get one throw and get 2 dozen mullet, we made a few more throws and came up empty!  Bait is a little tough on the mornings with falling tide right now… but thankfully I think Monday we will have some incoming for a few days and that’s been much better for bait catching.  Anyways the tarpon were not very responsive early on we found a good batch where they had been the last few days, but no bites we moved a few times and only got some bluefish and jacks.  We went up into a channel nearby and found a few more in there, though another boat had gotten lined up on them before us so we watched them get a couple bites but we couldn’t get anything going.  I decided to move on figuring it wasn’t gonna happen for us there so we ran out along the mainland to catch the start of the incoming tide.  The sharks have been horrendous out there, so I was hoping there’d be enough tarpon to make it worth while.  Luckily there was and we went through every bait we had dealing with all the little sharks, but we ended up landing two tarpon and jumping a few others off.  It seemed like every time we got a bite, you had to move to get away from the sharks.  So that’s what we did and it was pretty good fishing but it was a lot of work, though sometimes that is part of it!  Anyways Lance caught both fish I wish we could’ve got the boys each on one, but at least they had a few shots too.  Didn’t do much wrong just didn’t want to stay buttoned for us.  Oh well thats fishing and everyone had a great time.  Hopefully the fish cooperate tomorrow!  2 for 6

P.S. We normally do not lift tarpon out of the water for pictures, though if they are under 40 inches like the one pictures on the right, you are allowed to for a quick release picture.  We try to always support the belly and not hang them by their gills, not let them flop around on the deck too much wiping off slime, and make sure to revive them a little in the water if necessary.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk