Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Well the tarpon bite in my area of Islamorada/upper florida keys has slowed down a little bit recently.  Things stayed very strong all through April, though as we’ve entered May a lot of the big masses of fish seemed to have moved on.  Often times things spark up further south towards Big Pine Key/Key West near Bahia Honda, which I know happens to be the case now.  Fishing is still decent, however we’ve gone from the 10 to 15 bites a day of April, to a handful of bites a day now.  So if you happen to get lucky and make good on most of your bites, you can still have a banner day of fishing.  Though if you miss your opportunities it can be a bit of a disappointment as you may not get many more.  Such is fishing.  I imagine we should get another strong push of fish soon, this happens every years during prime time where fish leave to spawn and it’s a little bit more of a struggle for a period.  Though overall it’s still pretty good and in a couple more weeks I’ll likely be fishing more in the backcountry for tarpon for the summer months.  Right now I don’t have much available until closer to the end of July, but I do have Capt. Brandon running my old vessel who is ready and available a lot during June & July right now, and he is open for evening trips as well which is often a more productive time to go.  Haven’t been taking too many pictures these days mostly focused on video.  You can follow me on instagram to check out my video clips, hopefully I’ll have time to put a youtube report together here in a bit!

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

Well it’s already mid april and boy does time fly!  Fishing has been absolutely phenomenal the last couple weeks.  We had one last late cold front that had slowed it down the first or second day of april and since then it’s been full steam ahead.  I think we’ve caught no less than 3 fish a trip since then, with several trips getting into the 5, 6, and even 8 fish one day.  It’s just been good!  Of course its a lot of larger size bridge fish now, and many days we’re fishing lighter leaders to get them to bite.  So we don’t always get them boatside for great pictures but usually we get a good fight and try to get one up for a picture or just break them off on the leader.  I just released a new youtube update if you want to check that out – haven’t had too much time for videos lately just been busy!  Make sure to subscribe to our channel and follow me on social media for more daily updates.

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

Well I haven’t had a chance to do a YouTube fishing report update lately just been slammed busy especially with a couple toddlers at home!  But a quick update as of late – we had a good end of March with some big fish in the backcountry and got rolling good for a while.  Though early April another late cold front this past weekend it dropped into the low 60s and blew 25-30 mph for a couple days.  That kind of shut the backcountry tarpon bite down though we got out today (monday) around the local bridges and there were some fish around there.  Not a red hot bite but we managed a couple bites and scored a couple fish making them both count.  But a weak tidal scenario we only had a couple hours of good tide then slack for several hours on both ends.  But before that last week we had several days with multiple tarpon in the 60 to 120 lb range so that was really good.  That was all in the backcountry for me though and often around now that starts to slow down and the local keys/bridge fishing is where it’s out through April and most of May.  I always prefer fishing in the backcountry when we have a good shot back there, but we’ll see what happens from here on out.  I imagine it’ll start getting good this week locally again as water temperatures get back closer to 80 degrees (they were 72 today).  The fish are here and I’m hoping it will be a very strong April, May, and June as the early spring was much more hit & miss with all the late cold – but for those coming later it may be a blessing as the fish didn’t get beat up on too badly early on as sometimes things can get tough come later may/june when that happens it seems.  I don’t have much available until July but I do have my young man Brandon running my old boat who has availability and is offering the evening trips as well (4 to 8 PM) so I’m referring many to him he is a young, hard working fisherman and I’ve been training him the last year or two so he knows his stuff!

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