Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Well today the conditions were much nicer.  We started out in the backcountry and did have a bit of fog and chill in the air, slight north breezy in the morning.  We messed around with some smaller fish, redfish, trout, etc…  Tried tarpon fishing one of the backcountry channels and caught several sharks and a cobia.  Did see one tarpon roll, but tough to get past the sharks.  Definitely not a lot of tarpon in the area though I did not think as the wind at this point had laid down and was fairly calm, sunny – the type of conditions where you would normally see plenty.  Anyways we ran back towards Islamorada and finished up in the local channels we fished the other day.  Saw a few rolling fish, had one flash behind the boat eating some bait.  Though he did not bite for us right away.  Eventually we hooked and landed a nice 60 lb fish, great way to end the day.  David got to catch the fish he’d been after!  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Just got back in town after a week long vacation out west in the snow.  The end of January and February has not been ideal for tarpon fishing – we had a lot of late cold weather.  This included a couple of the coldest days we’ve had in years while I was out of town.  It got down into the 40s a couple nights.  So I have not been tarpon fishing much though the gulf, backcountry, and patch reefs have been good fishing for the most part to give us more of our traditional ‘winter time’ action.  The last few days while I was away we did have a few slick calm gorgeous days with some great fishing, I heard reports of all kinds of things including tarpon on the fly.  Today however the wind blew hard out of the southwest with weak tides, though the water temperatures at least are in the mid to high 70s.  Anyways we found a good school of mullet mudding and were able to catch them.  We ran into the backcountry and did not find any tarpon though did catch a few sharks, as well as had some action on the light rods.  We finished up the day locally around Islamorada and caught a nice ‘mud marlin’ and saw a tarpon rolling around in a channel.  Did not get him to bite though, but in another spot in the last 15 minutes we finally hooked a nice 90 lb tarpon we landed.  All in all not a bad day considering the poor conditions.  Looks like the wind is swinging back into the northeastern quadrant as another mild front hits us, but temperatures shouldn’t drop too much so hopefully the tarpon will continue making their way here!  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Tried to give it a shot for tarpon today in the everglades.  Forecast was off it was suppose to be light southeasterly winds and sunny, however it was hard north winds with fog.  Stayed pretty dreary most of the day.  Unfortunately this was not great for tarpon fishing conditions although the water temperature was at least in the mid 70s.  We struggled trying to find mullet only caught a few, but we did manage to get into a good school of ladyfish to catch for bait.  Tried setting up in some of the channels where the tarpon were last time we found them before the previous cold front.  Not much activity from them we did have a few shark bites when the current started finally moving.  After that ran off the beaches of the mainland, current was moving good there and sun finally came out as the wind switched more easterly.  Looked like a pretty afternoon.  Unfortunately no tarpon to be seen here either, we did catch plenty of sharks though.  Oh well nothing is guaranteed especially tarpon fishing in January in Islamorada!  Another front is expected Friday so I don’t think I’ll be trying again for a little while.  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk