Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with the crew from RI again today.  We did a 3/4 day and ran back into the everglades.  Had good falling tide until a little after 10:00 or so, gave us a good 3 hour window of fishing.  We saw quite a few busting and jumping tarpon in the area.  Our sister boat got on a couple early, we only had shark bites sitting about 30 yards away.  We moved around but still no luck.  We then moved a bit further out where we had seen fish busting, and ended up catching a couple smaller tarpon out there in the 25-40 lb range.  Was glad to get ’em!  Our sister boat caught one out there as well.  After the tide quit it slowed down and we made our way back home.  Full day tomorrow, not sure if I’ll head back there again it is nice to get away from the crowd of 20 boats around the bridges!  2 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Rich, Leo, and Walt today for a half day.  We caught some bait early there was plenty of bait around and also we found more on our way home.  The tarpon bit fairly well for us we didn’t have to move except to fight some fish.  We had incoming tide all morning.  The tarpon were eating the live mullet!  We had 5 bites and hooked 4 fish.  We landed 2 and the other 2 we had on for a few minutes but both threw the hooks while jumping.  It was good action and was glad to catch a couple.  Have the same crew tomorrow and I think we are going to go into the backcountry and try back there if the winds lay down like they are suppose to.  2 for 5

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Michael and Brian today.  Michael is a writer for the Wichita Eagle, the largest newspaper in the Kansas City area.  He said he’d be doing a little write up about his experience today so I was hoping fishing would be good!  We had a minor front hit us last night, winds swung around to the northwest, not hard but a steady 10-15 mph.  We went a little early and hooked a nice tarpon a little after 7 which Michael fought for about an hour!  We got him boatside several times on the leader, but he just wouldn’t roll over or cooperate for pictures.  Michael didn’t want to over stress him so we ended up popping him off.  After that we went to another area and had plenty of shark action, bonnet heads, nurses, and atlantic sharp nose, and finally had a tarpon eat a live mullet which Brian caught!  This one wasn’t quite as big maybe 60 lbs, and we landed him in 15 minutes and he was more cooperative for pictures thankfully.  After that we went and caught some dinner for the girls who didn’t get to come fishing, some nice mangrove snappers.  We finished up in the channels and caught the start of the falling tide.  Found some tarpon there too we had one eat a live mullet but didn’t get the hooks in him unfortunately, but ended up getting a big nurse shark on the bottom.  All in all a fine day I was glad the fish cooperated a bit.  Looks like some more west wind tomorrow then it should be swinging back to a more normal east and hopefully not blowing as hard as it was the last few weeks!  2 for 3

Capt. Rick Stanczyk