Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

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

Got out with Rod and Mark today and we decided to mix things up a bit.  It’d been flat calm the last couple days after it blew very hard sunday/monday, like 45 mph it was crazy!  Anyways things had warmed up a bit and I heard yesterday there were some tarpon around that the fly guys were chasing.  Anyways we decided to give it a shot we caught plenty of spanish mackerel in the morning and used them for bait.  We found some sharks in the channel as well, lemons and blacktips, as well as a couple big ‘mud marlin’ saw fish!  We only had 1 tarpon bite, but it counted and we landed a nice 75 lb fish!  Anyways nice to have caught the first tarpon of the year in January!  Looks like its suppose to get cold the next few nights though so it probably is going to be short lived.  But February is right around the corner and that can be the start of tarpon season for us if it is warm like it is today.  Of course the weather is unpredictable…  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Stumbled into some nice tarpon today.  We were fishing for mackerels in the gulf which was very good and then decided to hit some channels for some sharks and possibly other stuff.  Luckily the other stuff was there!  Winds were a little breezy but southeast and warm with 75 degree water temperatures.  We didn’t see any tarpon rolling but I did mark a few on the bottom machine so we changed our gear to be more suitable for a possible tarpon hookup.  We ended up jumping one, but a bit later hooked another that stayed on for us!  A nice 70 lb fish.  We also caught some sharks and a big mud marlin aka sawfish.  Anyways I think the ‘big stuff’ like this will hang around for a while as long as it stays warm.  I wouldn’t go betting the farm on it for your fishing trip, but if you have a day like today when you can mix it up and give it a shot during part of the day it can be well worth it.  1 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk