Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Well got out today for a tarpon bridge fishing session finally.  As many of you know I’ve cut back on my personal guiding and have just been fishing a handful of days here & there.  However now I am going to be fishing mondays, tuesdays, and wednesdays for the next few months strictly for tarpon.  This coincides with the best bridge tarpon fishing of the season.  Today was my first day around the bridges and we had some epic fishing!  I had my regular customers Chris and Thiago who have tarpon fished with me for 4 or 5 years now every year.  The bite was on pretty much all morning.  We had a nice incoming tide and the seaweed wasn’t too bad.  We hooked a fish in the first 5 minutes that we landed and got pictures of and proceeded to get a bite just about everywhere we stopped after that, not waiting much more than 15 minutes or so for any bites.  Mostly all tarpon too I think we ended up getting 5 to the boat and broke off a couple more.  The sharks got bad too unfortunately we had one fish get eaten and after that we willingly broke a couple off that were getting chased before the sharks ate them.  That at least gives them a fighting chance when they are full of adrenaline to get away.  Anyways about mid day around 11:30 the tide began to quit and I gave Chris the option to call it a 3/4 day since I didn’t really think it was going to be worthwhile to sit there through the slack afternoon tide.  So we headed back after that.  Anyways awesome fishing and good to see so many fish locally around Islamorada.   Capt. Stephen who is going to be running the boat for me some rode along today so he got to really see first hand how I like to bridge fish and particularly how I use my trolling motor and electronics to assist in the fishing.  I have another trip booked tomorrow he’ll be coming along on and he’s already got a few trips on the book for later this month.

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

Well it’s about what we like to call ‘prime time’ for tarpon fishing here in the Florida Keys! We had some slick calm weather a couple days ago and there were thousands of tarpon in the backcountry and thousands showing up locally around the bridges, channels, and ocean atlantic side… almost everywhere you looked there were tarpon! April is one of the best months to fish here for them and the mullet run coincides with this timeframe which is the bait of choice for tarpon. We often go out early and catch bait or buy it when we have to to give you all the best shot at catching fish. Bait is part of the game and can definitely make or break your day but April is often nice because the bait is usually still pretty easy to catch. Sometimes later in late May/June it gets tougher on that front for sure but every year is different.

Anyways Capt. Trent who has been running our 18′ skiff this season has been doing pretty good. He’s been mixing it up a lot of trips but the last three trips all yielded nice tarpon catches for his anglers along with large nurse sharks, lemon sharks, rays, groupers, and cubera snappers. He’s also been catching a lot of nice mangrove snapper for clients for a little hook & hook, and a few resident snook as well. He’s got plenty of availability still in April and he along with my team of guys will be working together to keep the bait stocked up and in the know as far as where the best tarpon fishing is.

I’m also happy to announce Capt. Stephen Byrd is joining the team and will be running my boat for me on my off days (usually Friday & Saturday right now) and will also soon be available for evening trips just about any evening (the 4 pm to 8 pm window). Right now we have most Friday and Saturdays available the next few months with him. He’ll still be available at my older rate not my new seasonal rate too which you can find info on that on my charter FAQ page.

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

Got out with one of my regulars Paul and his buddies.  We had a late cold front come through it didn’t get terribly cold but water temps definitely dropped to the high 60s in the bay and the gulf remainded a little warmer in the low 70s.  It was borderline questionable whether or not it was gonna be worthwhile.  But I was just talking to a friend of mine the other night about a few years back having a late front this time of year and doing well as it seemed the tarpon were well settled and happy and a little temp drop didn’t bother them that time.  So I figured being that theres been a ton of tarpon around it might be the same case.  The guys wanted to give it a shot so off we went.  We were loaded with mullet that I caught the day before.  We got out there and it wasn’t too bad of a ride over aside from the cold you definitely needed a sweatshirt and pants.  The wind stays northeast early and was blowing a good 15 mph, but turned more east/southeast later in the day and picked up to 20-25 which made for a little rougher ride home but nothing the Contender couldn’t handle.  We got out there and had to look around for a few minutes but we saw some busting fish.  I set up and sure enough our first bait out got picked up by a tarpon within about 10 minutes, though he threw the hook unfortunately.  After that we caught some sharks and moved around a few times, eventually getting into more tarpon.  We ended up catching four believe it or not, a couple large 100+ lb fish and then a couple in the 60 lb range.  Really great fishing to get 5 bites in not great conditions.  A big bull shark did get one of our tarpon though and a pack of bulls came in and finished her off unfortunately after we released it.  Hate seeing that but sometimes nothing you can do.  Anyways I don’t think we’ll be getting too much more cold weather but you never know, but at least for the next few weeks I doubt it’ll get cold enough to push those fish away.  Come April the tarpon should be loading up more around the bridges and channels and that bite should get a little better but the backcountry is often where its at in February and March.  I have a couple days left open at the end of March and a handful of days in April.  Prime tarpon time is now don’t miss out!  Again I’m doing my seasonal rate but only fishing 3 days a week so I can move things around often if the conditions dont look good (I even offered that on this day but the guys wanted to go!)  And you can get some cool video clips or even a full youtube video of your catch like this!

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