Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Well stormy weather again lots of rain this AM.  We waited and left around 6:30, got lucky and didn’t really get any hard rain all day, just a drizzle here and there.  Fishing was decent it was a stiff west wind not great condition but we managed.  Caught a nice big snook first thing, lots of small sharks, bent the light rods with trout and snapper, then finished up with 2 out of 4 tarpon.  The beach fish were not active but we found a channel in the backcountry in the afternoon that had some fish.  Most the action was within a 45 minute window, after that we fished another hour and caught a couple more larger blacktips, but glad we got a couple tarpon.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Conditions changed today and so did the fishing.  We had lots of rain and weather around this morning but we managed to sneak through it without getting wet.  Caught mullet first thing and ran out off the everglades mainland cape sable area.  Set up where I’d been catching fish but not much luck in the morning, just a couple sharks and small goliath grouper.  Tried some channels further towards flamingo tarpon fishing in august.  No luck there, so we ran back off the cape to catch the start of the falling tide.  We hooked two fish though both got away unfortunately and we caught a few more sharks.  Things can change in a hurry but we did get on the fish they just wouldn’t cooperate and stay on the hook for us today.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

More great fishing.  Left out early and caught mullet first thing.  We hit the same spot as yesterday, though got their bright and early lines in the water by 7:30.  Last of the incoming tide.  Right away we had a double header tarpon, lost one but caught the other.  Then another tarpon.  Then some small sharks.  Tide quit and changed direction and the big snook started biting, we caught 3 of them.  We caught 4 goliath grouper, some bigger blacktip sharks, then the tarpon started biting again.  We caught 3 out of 4 more tarpon.  So 5 for 7 tarpon on the day plus plenty of other big cool stuff.  Fishing doesn’t get any better than that in august fishing islamorada in the everglades.  We were back home by noon.  None of the tarpon were very picture cooperative, but I did get one good jump shot.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk