Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

More tarpon fishing again today.  Boy how a day can change things!  We caught bait early and ran to where we had been catching tarpon very good the last few days.  Today though they pulled a disappearing act!  We fished for about 1.5 hours out there and just sharks no tarpon bites.  I didn’t even see any rolling or anything very strange…  Anyways we had weather behind us so after it passed we ran back into the channels where there had been some fish previously.  Did not see much on the surface though we did eventually catch a nice blacktip shark there.  After 45 minutes a fish started rolling behind the boat and 10 seconds later we had him on – a big 85 lb fish!  We landed him and tried one other area for another hour but that was it for the tarpon, just more sharks.  Anyways any day you get one is a good day!  We finished the day after that catching some trout and snappers for dinner.  Have a morning trip and an evening trip tomorrow, I don’t think we are tarpon fishing in the AM but will be tomorrow evening.  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Another fabulous day this summer time thing is really something special right now!  We had some bait leftover from yesterday and I did catch a handful on the way out.  We didn’t leave until 7 I couldn’t get ahold of my people ahead of time they were coming from overseas.  But it didn’t stop us we got on the tarpon early and first bait out we had one on within a few minutes!  We ended up going 4 for 5 on tarpon in about 2 hours.  The tide quit and we decided to try some other things.  We chummed up some live baits and then we had some good fishing for snook with a few redfish, trout, and jacks mixed in.  A phenomenal day with multiple SLAMS (redfish, snook, tarpon).  4 for 5

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Well after a couple days off I was back at it again today.  We caught bait early and whacked em good plenty of bait for the day in one throw!  We set up in some channels with the falling tide and it was fairly calm.  Saw a few fish roll but they weren’t super happy.  Eventually we got our bite and landed a nice 55 lb tarpon.  We sat for a while longer and the grass was pretty bad making it semi-tough to fish.  Eventually we hooked another fish and got him to the boat on the leader before he jumped off.  After that I decided to move and we ran out to the beaches looking for fish.  We found a good pack and caught one on the tide change.  After that it was game on with the start of the incoming tide we caught 4 more tarpon in about 2 1/2 hours!  Crazy bite everything that hit the water plus several sharks too.  We ended up landing all 7 bites we had which is my best day this year!  4 tarpon to the hand, and the other 3 we got next to the boat before they jumped and threw the hook but technical releases!  Jack and Jay had a blast and tarpon was what they were down here to catch.  Summer time fishing is as good as it gets right now and July and August can be very good too, sometimes better than the ‘prime time’ of March thru May plus you get the fishery all to yourself sometimes like we did today.  Look me up I have dates open in July!  7 for 7

Capt. Rick Stanczyk