Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

4/17/16 – I had the day off and fished this evening.  In the morning I went out and caught some bait that was pretty good but had to work to find them.  The wind was howling today it started blowing 25-30 mph out of the east after being nice and calm the day before.  On the evening we stayed local and tried the channels we saw fish just about everywhere but tough to get them to respond.  We didn’t have any bites first stop, caught a big nurse shark.  Second stop we did have a fish up and he flashed on the bait and grabbed the mullet and scaled it, but never got the hook.  After that a cuda ate us off on the bottom rod.  We moved again and had a couple tarpon almost free jump in the boat, but no bites out of them.  Caught a few more sharks and by 7:45 my anglers were ready to call it a night and grab dinner.  I offered to even stay later I really don’t like striking out, but it happens and unfortunately this year it’s been happening a little more often than I like but fishing has been a little tougher this April.  0 for 1

4/18/16 – I had Steve, Nick, and Craig from the UK.  Steve fished with me last year.  We got on a nice big tarpon early for Craig he landed about a 120 lb fish in the first couple hours!  After that we made our way around the bridges and the tarpon were biting pretty good.  About 10 boats there and I think just about all of them caught at least one fish.  We hooked another one right when we got there and Steve landed a nice 70 lb fish.  After that Nick had a couple bites but we missed them and a few more cheap shots.  When the tide quit we tried another bridge and then the local channels around islamorada, however we never had any more tarpon action.  It seemed to really die down I talked to several people and sounded like the morning bite was it I saw one other fish caught in the channel in the afternoons.  Anyways happy to get two especially this year!  2 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Ran back into the everglades today to give the tarpon fishing a try.  We had slick calm weather in the morning and the start of the incoming tide.  We caught some mullets very early and made our way back there.  Saw some fish in the first channel we stopped in things looked right and they were biting a bit.  We hooked and landed 3 tarpon from 40 to 80 lbs plus a few sharks.  Nice to have them so cooperative!  After that the wind kicked up a little northeast and we ran and tried another area.  Nothing but sharks there but some good size blacktips.  After that I tried a little area I’ve only fished a few times but have caught tarpon there before.  There were some fly fishing guys poling nearby so I snuck around them and got set up.  We saw a few tarpon roll and had a couple sharks bite us off, but soon hooked another 80 lb tarpon that we landed!  Such a pretty spot to catch one at too.  After that we tried some channels near flamingo and saw a few busts, not sure what they were.  But we ended up landing about a 200 lb tiger shark which was very cool to see that far up into the bay.  Anyways a great day!  4 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out this evening for the silver king.  We fished 6 to 10.  Had the last of the incoming tide with it slicked out, not much wind.  I tried an area I hadn’t fished at all really this year and we saw a few fish rolling around.  I moved and got lined up on them and we put our baits out.  Had a couple sharks early on.  After 45 minutes we finally hooked and landed a nice 90 lb tarpon.  After that the tide quit and we moved back into the other channels to fish our crabs at dark.  As the tide started falling and the sun went down the tarpon got very active.  We had 3 bites on our first drift, jumping off the first two fish and then landing the last one about a 80 lb fish.  After that we made three more drifts, on the last drift we had something crush our crab but not sure what it was.  Anyways glad we were there while they were fired up and always good to catch a couple tarpon!  Full day tomorrow though I may consider fishing a late evening again as I have an opening sunday, will take whatever trip comes first!  2 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk