Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out this morning for a half day and we caught a nice little tarpon in the backcountry.  They weren’t where they were the day before, we caught a few little sharks there.  But we found some around flamingo and got one to bite at least and landed him.  Didn’t see much else though only a couple rolling in the channel where we got the 1.  1 for 1

This evening I had the same crew again.  Unfortunately it was slow fishing again.  We had a few cheap shots on our mullet early and I thought we would get one, but didn’t happen.  We moved around and tried some different areas.  No dice.  We did find some fish rolling off the edge of a bank and set up there to fish for a bit, finally had one bait get a little nervous and jumpy though nothing ever pounded him.  We put our crabs out and we had a couple mystery bites on those, got the crabs back with a few legs missing though I dont think they were tarpon bites.  Anyways slow night our sister boat didn’t catch one either they jumped one off.  Going early tomorrow we will try to catch the falling tide first thing then run into the backcountry to try back there.  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

5/19/16 We tried to get out in the morning it was nasty weather a lot of rain and lightning.  Anyways we were able to sneak out for almost a couple hours in the morning before the sun came up and the weather got real bad.  We did have plenty of tarpon around the boat and I would of swore we should’ve gotten a bite, but no dice.  We decided to call it quits after the weather got bad a bit later.  Got out in the evening and we had slow fishing.  Ran down to the big bridges and saw a few fish being caught though we couldn’t get a bite!  We ran back up near home and fished the local channels and did finally get a couple bites on our live mullet, though we missed them.  The guys wanted to be in at 8:00 promptly, otherwise I definitely would’ve stayed the extra little bit as I’m pretty sure we’d of gotten one hooked within a few more minutes, but no dice!  0 for 2

5/20/16 Today we were really after sharks and more action as the guys had fished the previous night for tarpon with another guide and didn’t have much luck.  We tried an area but even the sharks weren’t cooperating so I ran to a different spot.  There were tarpon rolling everywhere and we jumped a fish fairly quickly.  A little later we finally hooked and landed a nice smaller 40 lber.  Then we caught a few sharks and a big sting ray.  Then we moved a little bit as the grass got real bad drifting in the channel.  We hooked and landed another smaller tarpon of 50 lbs or so.  And a couple more small blacktip sharks.  Anyways a nice surprise.  2 for 3

5/20/16 Went out this evening and we had a slow night.  We worked very hard I went and caught plenty of fresh bait this afternoon.  Had a few cheap shots and one bite we missed fishing the big bridges.  The sister boat who was fishing the same group as us was in the right spot and we watched them catch 3 which was a little frustrating but oh well.  They seemed to be the only boat getting bit.  Anyways I gave it an extra half hour with the guys and we fished the local channels near home until 8:30 but not dice.  A couple tough nights for me lately hopefully tomorrow is better!  I won’t really be taking any more night trips unless on short notice for the rest of the season, when I know the fishing is good!  0 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out this morning and we fished locally close by for a half day.  We had good strong incoming tide and a bit of weather around though it didn’t rain on us.  Kept nice and overcast which was helpful i think.  Anyways we hooked a big fish early on and chased him around for a good 45 minutes, got him to the boat but he broke on the leader before we could get good pics.  Then after that we set back up and saw a few more fish roll.  Moved around a bit to get lined up, and eventually hooked another one we jumped off right away.  We put the baits back out and literally 30 seconds later we hooked another one – nice!  We fought this big girl for over an hour, about a 150 lber very large fish!  Anyways we finally landed her but same thing she broke through on the leader.  Got one good jump shot of her though.  Anyways after that we fished a little longer and called it a morning.  Was glad to have good fishing as it was the same customers from yesterday and we had at tough day.  All you can do is go give it your best again though!  Anyways tomorrow I have a 3/4 day will be trying a similar routine and may go run down towards marathon to fish the big bridges if my live baits stay lively over night.  2 for 3

Capt. Rick Stanczyk