Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Jim and Gwen today, two of my longest running customers and some of my favorites.  Winds were kicking out of the southwest pretty good as we have another front coming in.  We had some bait left over from a few days ago and we hit the channels looking for some tarpon.  We found them in the first place we stopped, had nice falling tide that would last most of the day.  We caught a few sharks early then Jim jumped a nice tarpon over 100 lbs!  Too bad he didn’t stay on the hook though…  After that we moved around a bit and caught a couple more sharks, then Gwen hooked a nice 70 lb tarpon that we landed.  A good fight we had to chase it for a while but got some nice pictures by the boat.  After that the tarpon seemed to slow down, so we tried another part of the channel.  Saw a few on the bottom machine but no more bites, but we did catch some more sharks and a ‘mud marlin’ sawfish.  After that it got rougher and we hid around the islands to catch some snappers for dinner and came home.  With the front coming in tonight and tomorrow, I imagine the tarpon will slow down for a few days again… suppose to get down around 60 and they definitely don’t like that!  But not going to get cold until tomorrow night so maybe there will be a shot tomorrow morning.  1 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got after the tarpon again today.  We had a light southwesterly breeze that picked up a little in the afternoon but overall not too bad.  It is a prefrontal condition though and suppose to get down in the 60s tonight so may turn the tarpon off for a few days at least.  We caught plenty of mackerels early and then hit the tarpon areas.  Fish were where they had been, we caught sharks and some ‘mud marlin’ sawfish early on, and after a couple moves we hooked a big 150 lb tarpon!  He was jumping like crazy coming at us and every which direction, but he stayed on there.  We got him to the boat with leader in hand, but he didn’t want to pose for a boatside picture.  Luckily we caught another and this one wasn’t quite as big but still probably 120-130 or so.  He didn’t fight as hard but still ended up taking us a ways with the current and wind, but we got him next to the boat for some good photo ops.  After that we caught a few more sharks and tried for a few snook again to finish the day, but with the wind direction the shoreline area was fairly muddy and didn’t have much luck.  Though a great day with 2 big tarpon and some other critters too!  2 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Had a glass calm day today and it looked very tarpony out there!  February is usually still pretty early for our tarpon season, but when its hot and calm like this, they can definitely show up.  I had heard the last couple days a few were around again though didn’t have clients that were interested in them… Today though it sounded like a good option.  We caught a bunch of mackerels much of which we used for bait early on.  Then we hit the channels out west of flamingo and found the tarpon there.  They weren’t chewing like crazy, but after a little work we soon had a nice 80 lber hooked up.  We got him boatside but he threw the hook before we could get good victory pictures as they often do, but still landed none the less.  After that we ended up with more sharks, and a few big mud marlin, and finished the day with some nice snook.  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk