Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Steve, Dick, and Floyd today.  Tarpon was one of the fish mentioned on their itinerary.  We had some bait leftover from yesterday so we went right to it.  The tides were predicted to be very weak, and i knew after yesterday we’d be near the slack if we did other fishing first, so we went right to the tarpon area.  We didn’t see much for fish in the first few stops.  I looked around hard since I’d been seeing a lot of activity and such when I’d been catching them.  We spent around 30 minutes checking 3 different areas, but not a whole lot showing.  We fished for a bit in one, caught a few sharks and a 200 lb sawfish mud marlin.  I talked to another boat who had been fishing up the channel where we had looked first thing, he hadn’t seen much either.  So we checked one more spot where I had ran over a few fish the day before.  We lucked out and as soon as I stopped the boat, I saw multiple fish on the bottom machine and a few rolling – we were in ’em!  First bait out we had a bite in about 30 seconds, though we jumped him off.  Put it right back out there and a minute later we were hooked up.  A nice 100 lb fish!  He jumped a couple times, but then was playing down and dirty the rest of the time.  We followed him around and he dragged us for quite a ways.  He didn’t give up and we fought him for an hour and a half!  We finally got him to the boat on the leader, but as soon as we tried to get him in the hand for pictures, the line went slack and he fell right off the hook!  Oh well the boys got some good video at least, I snapped a few pics while he rolled while we fought him.  We were very happy to get the official release, minus the boatside pics.  After that the tide was very dead, a few more fish were rolling, but no more action out of them.  We finished the day catching some spanish mackerel and headed home.  1 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Tried for the tarpon again, today it was slick calm early on in the morning and a light breeze out of the west later in the afternoon.  We struggled trying to catch our bait but were able to get enough after a little while.  We found a lot of tarpon rolling where they were the day before… but we didn’t have much tide.  We had the last trickle of incoming, then it was slack for 20 minutes or so.  Tarpon were floating all around us and we couldn’t get much out of them.  I know there were 3 other boats in the area and I don’t think any of them had any luck either.  Anyways we did catch some sharks.  The boys didn’t want to give it much more time after the little over an hour we had spent, we went and did some triple tail fishing and that was very good!  Oh well maybe we will get one tomorrow.  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Well after the small cold blast we had the last couple days, today was flat calm and things warmed up again nicely.  A mini front dropped the water temperatures from the high 70s back down to 70ish, and the tarpon definitely dont like that.  I didn’t even bother fishing for them, but we did some other things for the last couple days to keep us busy.  Today my anglers Brandon and Eric had mentioned tarpon and I told them we’d have a shot since it looked to be on the warming trend, even though water temps are still on the lower end of what I like to see for catching tarpon in Islamorada.  We caught plenty of mackerels early on for the first hour, then went and checked the channels.  We found a ton of tarpon where we first stopped, didn’t see many rolling but a tail splash here or there, but I could see them on my bottom machine!  We first hooked a big blacktip that Eric battled, and as soon as we landed that, Brandon hooked a monster 150 lb tarpon.  He jumped several times but never made any blistering runs, but luckily he stayed on the hook.  We eventually landed him after 20 minutes or so – a pretty quick battle for a fish that size.  We got sucked into looking for tarpon the rest of the day, and fished a few more areas, though that was to be the only bite we had.  We did catch some more sharks, and a big old sawfish which was cool.  Marked a few other tarpon and maybe saw a couple roll in some of the other areas, but no big packs like where we first stopped.  Anyhow tomorrow looks like conditions should be good for the silver king in the florida keys, then looks like it’ll get a little chilly a couple nights later in the week, but maybe not enough to really bother the tarpon – we will have to see!  That’s the only problem this time of year is you still have a good possibility of cold weather, and sometimes even though it may not feel like it changes much, a few degrees in the water temperatures can make the tarpon go from happy and chewing, to not doing much at all.  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk