Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out today with Mark, Peter, and Matthew we had crazy high winds of 30+ mph!  Yesterday was pretty much the same and we did some snapper fishing around some of the islands that are not too far away.  Luckily in our area there are enough shallow areas, even when it is blowing crazy like this you can still get out there and do some fishing.  Though options are limited.  Anyways we were really just hoping to catch some mangrove snappers, which we had good luck with yesterday.  We often catch some nicer size ones on cut bait.  But we got lucky and found some little tarpon too!  Matthew ended up catching one and it was one of his first times fishing, a nice little 15 lber on light 20 lb spinning gear.  A nice surprise on a nasty day like this!  Looks to be blowing the next few days though it will be coming down somewhat.  The water temperatures have dropped considerably – I know in the backcountry it was down in the high 60s even though the air temperature didn’t drop too much.  The tarpon back there won’t like that, so may be a few days before they show back up and get happy.  Once the wind calms down things will have a chance to warm back up and settle down.  I’ll be taking a week or so off here though after tomorrow, expecting the birth of my first child, so hopefully when I get back they’ll be chewing!  1 for 1

Note:  We normally do not lift tarpon out of the water, however smaller fish (under 40 inches) you are still allowed to remove from the water (carefully) for a quick picture.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with John and Jan today.  They are fishing with me the next two days as well.  Tarpon wasn’t high on their list of priorities, they just wanted to bend the rod and have fun.  But with the slicked off conditions and since we had some leftover bait from the other day, I figured we ought to at least take a look.  We caught plenty of mackerel early in the morning, then looked for tripletail on the way to the beaches.  Didn’t see much for tripletail, and out at the beach it didn’t look like much going on.  But off in the distance I saw a fish free jump and we ran over there.  We got into a good little pile of ’em, and within 5 minutes we hooked a nice 80 lber for John!  He fought him for about 15 minutes or so and we landed him, then tried to set back up.  Not much other activity though, we caught a few sharks and then the tide quit.  I moved around a bit, and kept seeing a handful of tarpon around.  Eventually the tide got going and we moved around a bit more.  Right when we were about out of bait with 5 minutes or so left, Jan hooked up a nice fish!  Right about the same size as Johns, though I’d have to say a pound or two bigger!  We landed him too and then headed home.  Was great to get them each one, sometimes you get sucked into staying somewhere when you catch a nice fish right away, at least this time it paid off.  The next couple days we have some north wind coming, and then the weekend it’s suppose to be blowing like crazy with a minor front hitting us.  I probably won’t be tarpon fishing and doesn’t sound like it’ll be very good anyways.  But maybe sometime next week.  2 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Brian and Trevor today.  We did a mixed bag trip and gave tarpon a try for part of the day.  We caught some mullet in the muds on the way out, so had plenty of good fresh bait.  Mackerels were good in the morning.  We tried the backcountry channels later on for sharks/tarpon.  Not much activity back there though again today, yesterday it was slow too.  I did mark a few fish that I’m pretty sure were tarpon, but no bites just a couple small blacktips and a big nurse shark.  We then did some more light tackle stuff and caught some trout.  Finished up near home again in the channel where we caught one yesterday.  We hit it right at the tide change and I thought once the tide got going, we’d for sure get a shot.  But again no bites, we hooked a big sting ray that cut us off and that was it.  I did see some fish roll and several on the bottom too… None of the 4 boats there got a bite.  Anyways we gave it a good hard shot, hopefully it’ll be better tomorrow!  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk