Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

The wind was howling again today 25 knots or so… really kicking!  We stayed close today as I had Pete & crew again and wanted to just do something different.  We fished the backcountry the last 3 days and with the winds howling like they are, figured we’d just try staying close.  The tides were very weird with a weak falling tide and hard wind, it didn’t seem to move much early.  We didn’t get a bite early on, but on the 2nd stop after sitting for an hour or so, we hooked a nice 80 lb fish that we landed relatively quickly.  Pulled the hook but well after we had him to the leader several times, just couldn’t get him to stay turned for the boatside picture.  After that a couple other boats in the area also hooked up, and that was it.  We decided to run down to some of the other bigger bridges and channels.  Marked quite a few fish on the bottom and saw one roll… I figured we’d wait it out.  We caught a few sharks, then hooked a nice 100 lb tarpon!  Another fairly quick fight we landed him in 15 minutes or so, but again had him on the leader and he chaffed through it before we could get him to lay still, but at least got a good jump shot of him.  After that things slowed down no more bites, but on a windy day like this to catch two is very good that’s for sure!  Anyways tomorrow is the last day hopefully our lucky streak will continue.  Looks like monday things will get nice again hopefully for a little while anyways, I’m ready for the calm days of summer to be here!  2 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out for a full day with Pete and crew again today.  The winds kicked up good last night and it was howling 25 mph today out of the east.  We ran into the backcountry and tried the channels early.  It was pretty muddy and had the last couple hours of incoming tide.  Nothing but sharks in the first stop, then nothing at all in the second stop.  We ventured out off the mainland to give it a whirl out there since we’d seen a good amount of fish their the last couple days.  Didn’t see much with our eyes, but did end up catching one thankfully and got one more shark.  Moved once and nothing after that.  We tried inside the big canal off the cape for the last bit, and had a  couple shark bites, and that was all she wrote.  Was glad to get one on a windy day like today, two more days with the boys I think we may stay local tomorrow.  Fishing got tough and will probably stay that way until the wind lays down a little, hopefully we can make it happen again.  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Pete and crew again today.  We left early and ran straight out back since I had caught bait yesterday afternoon.  We hit the tide change though we found a ton of tarpon…  Even with no current/tide we managed a couple bites and caught both of them!  The tide took its time changing, and turned out to be fairly weak.  We moved around a bit afterwards, and made quite a few moves before finding the fish again… They really seemed to spread out once the tide started to move and sun came up more.  After a little ride we settled back a few hundred yards down from where we started and found a body of fish.  We managed a couple more bites and landed both, and also got a big tripletail on the tarpon bait which was cool!  Plenty of sharks while doing all of the above.  The winds kicked up around 11 AM, and it’s suppose to blow pretty good through the weekend… I’m sure this will likely slow the fishing down a little bit.  Maybe tomorrow they’ll still be there, I hope so!  Have the same crew for the next 3 days so hopefully we can keep them on the fish.  4 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk