Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

I’ve still been getting out a fair bit, but not every day as we’re entering more ‘off season’ mode here.  Tarpon fishing has still been hit & miss we never really got any consistent ‘red hot’ summer fishing though there has been fish around and if you put time in most days you get a few shots.  But as of late I’ve been doing more snook fishing and other things, and just giving the tarpon a try for a little bit.  I did have a couple of my last few trips yield big results too… yesterday we landed 4 tarpon in the last spot of the day after a great morning of snook fishing.  Kind of unexpected but we just happened into them!  And earlier this month I had a couple fishing with me who said they really wanted tarpon and of course I obliged, we gave it a shot first thing after not having a bite the previous two trips that we tried.  But sure enough they were happy on this day and we landed 4 in the morning on that trip.  So needless to say tarpon is still a definite possibility and will be until winter time and it starts to get cold.  But when I’m not super confident in it I may recommend doing other things and not dedicated a ton of time to it, so then you still get to catch a variety of things and have a good day of fishing regardless. Though all that being said, we’ve had years where September and October are sometimes some of the best tarpon fishing we get all year.  While I don’t think that will be the case this year (Late March through early June were tremendous for tarpon, just summer was a little slower than normal) it still may get better than it is now and worth dedicated the whole trip to again.  But time will tell.  Anyways if you are wanting to go fishing drop me a line, I have a little more short notice availability these days and I’m not pushing to fish super hard anyways.  So I’ll shoot you straight as to what’s biting and do my best to make my anglers happy!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina

Well the last couple of days the tarpon fishing did get a bit better in the everglades for us.  It had been a bit of a grind as of late still we had been catching tarpon, but just having to put a lot of time in, fishing hard moving around and going through a lot of bait to eek out a bite or two.  However the last couple of days we managed to get a half dozen bites each trip.  The first of those days we missed the first 4 tarpon – just very light bites not aggressive and as soon as the fish came out of the water the bait/hook was being spit.  However we did manage to catch a couple tarpon later in the day on these trips so we got 2 out of 6.  One of them was a large 65 lber so that was nice and quite the battle to get him in.  The second day luck was on our side we caught a nice tarpon early in our first stop.  Then moved out to the same area we had the 4 bites previously and we ended up catching 5 more, plus a couple of large jumbo snook!  Now I will say it still took some work we had to reposition the boat often, no just sitting there and getting bit up having them come to us.  But with the extra effort and getting in the right spot, it seemed to produce a bite on each move.  And some days the bites are just good bites and they stay on the hook, and others they just are just going through the motions and spit it out quick.  But anyways good signs I’m hoping we are still due to have things get a little more consistent and easy hopefully sometime in August or maybe even later in september or october.  But tarpon are definitely still possible fishing here in Islamorada and I’ll have more short notice availability these next few months plus I have my other boat with Capt. Brandon running too, so give me a shout!

Also please make sure to sign up for my mailing list  – again I’ll be sending notifications when I open my 2022 calendar which will likely be 30 days ahead of time for February – June next year.  Also if I have some news about fishing these next few months you can get it as well!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina

Well I have just gotten back from a couple weeks off, having a nice vacation in Turks & Caicos!  So I had not been fishing since end of June but we got out yesterday.  Bait has been around and was fairly easy for us to catch locally which was great.  We found tarpon in several locations… however they were very spread out and not wanting to bite very well.  We would set up and see a few, and then everything would just seem to scatter.  After our 3rd spot, we moved a few times and then finally hooked a big lemon shark.  As we lifted the trolling motor to get around that, we hooked a tarpon on our other rod that was still out!   A nice little 25 lber.  And that was really it for the tarpon action, we finished the day catching a couple tripletail and some trout & snappers for dinner.  So I will say the tarpon bite is still a little tough in the backcountry, about how it was before I left.  The fish are there you just must put time in to get the action out of them, and it is easy to dedicate a day to just getting a handful of shots at them.  However that being said – I really feel like it’s due to open up here and get good soon, I was hoping me taking a couple weeks off it would have changed when I returned, but doesn’t seem to be the case.  Though as with all fishing, that could change tomorrow.  But I’m hoping we’ll perhaps have a very strong August/September later summer tarpon season.  The fish are out there they have to bite sometime!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina