Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

3/4/16 Today we did a mixed bag trip, it was myself and another boat for a group party.  In the morning we mackerel and tripletail fished, it was very productive.  Mid day we put the tarpon/shark gear out.  We did see some fish in the backcountry channels and moved around a few times trying to get in front of them, however we had no bites from the tarpon.  Plenty of small blacktip sharks though to keep busy.  We later tried around town again where I had found some fish the day before, however the tide was pretty slack and we saw no signs of life.  I fished 3 different spots and did not see any, however as stated we hit the tide at a bad time.  However we had a great day overall still catching plenty of other stuff.  The tarpon fishing isn’t quite good enough yet to dedicate the whole day to it, in my opinion!  0 for 0

3/5/16 Today we did a similar plan as yesterday.  Mackerel and tripletail in the morning followed by fishing the big rods out back again.  I tried a different area for the big rods and we found some various sharks – bulls, lemons, and blacktips.  In the distance I could see some busting and rolling tarpon, so after an hour we moved out in that zone.  We had to move around a couple times, but eventually we got in front of some happy fish and had a couple tarpon bites within 10 minutes of each other.  Unfortunately neither fish stayed on the hook for us, we caught a few more sharks.  We moved around again and we were able to hook and land a nice 50 lb tarpon plus a few more sharks.  After that the wind switched to due west and the tide slacked, which was kind of the end of our day.  But happy to get a nice poon!  1 for 3

Well things have finally started to warm up and we’ve had some calm weather so a few tarpon have started to show up.  It’s not red hot fishing yet but they are around and if you put time in you can catch ’em.  We tried several areas and did not see a whole ton of fish, there were some way back off the mainland that were making their way into the backcountry it seemed.  We didn’t have much luck back there we did catch plenty of sharks and a couple cobia and some tripletail.  But we gave it at shot close to home in the afternoon and saw a handful of fish rolling in the local channels.  They were interested in live bait only we had two bites on live mullets, one we managed to keep stuck and landed a nice 60 lber.  The mullet are showing up as well no massive schools that I’ve seen but good numbers in the usual areas we look.  It should get better and better and boy are we ready for tarpon season here.  1 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

January has been fairly warm here this winter.  I haven’t tried a lot but there had been tarpon around a lot of days.  We finally had our first real cold front a little over a week ago.  Though since then it warmed back up however we are getting cold weather again tonight and the next several nights.  Today we found some tarpon after fishing for snook/reds all day.  They were very active busting on lots of smaller bait fish and shrimp.  We worked them for a while, with no bites and catching a few snook in the mean time.  Though when the tide switched and started to trickle in, we got a couple bites.  I jumped one off on a shrimp that was just laying near the bottom on slack tide.  Then my angler Steve was casting near the mangroves and just slowly retrieving and he got slammed. He landed a nice 30 lb tarpon we got to the boat but then he jumped and threw the hook.  Anyways great way to end our day and Steve got a SLAM – snook, redfish, and tarpon.  We may have an early start to our normal tarpon season if things stay warm.  Perhaps as early as first week of February or maybe even end of January.  Drop me a line if you are interested or going to be around.  1 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk