Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Well back from vacation had some nice time off the water.  Yesterday I fished and things had gotten very tough since I was gone.  We caught plenty of bait – mullet and nice pilchards.  Though did not see any tarpon in the backcountry, caught several blacktip sharks.  Then tried fishing with the pilchards and only had 2 snook bites out of about a dozen spots I fished.  They really moved around!  Today I had a half day and used some of the bait we caught yesterday that I kept on ice.  Incoming tide and pretty weedy, not great conditions.  We did not see any tarpon until the last 30 minutes.  I saw a free jumper and we set up near him, saw another fish roll, and within 20 minutes we had one on!  A nice fish almost 100 lbs.  We also caught a couple saw fish which was cool and had a couple big barracudas grab baits and go airborn before cutting us off.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

More stellar fishing.  We left the dock early again, had to catch bait today but it was a quick stop.  One throw of the net and we had 3 dozen nice fresh silver mullet, all we would need.  Ran to the tarpon area and we were fishing by just after 7:00, nice!  It wasn’t red hot in the beginning as it has been.  The last several days we’d been getting a bite within the first few minutes which is always a nice thing.  Today we sat for close to 40 minutes before getting a bite.  Though we finally did.  Ended up catching 3 nice tarpon, one close to 85 lbs and the others in the 40-55 lb range.  July has been fantastic for tarpon fishing in the everglades.  We finished the day up catching some nice pilchards for bait, and caught about 10 good snook on them.  Well really 9.5 – one got eaten by a shark!  The rain had chased us around a good bit, but finally was able to get to the spot I wanted to and it paid off.

My last trip for a while – going on vacation should be back in town next Tuesday! Will give the tarpon a little break.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

More great action in the everglades this july tarpon fishing!  I had bait from yesterday so we got an early start and made our way into the backcountry.  Had good falling tide all morning.  We did very well we caught 5 nice tarpon in the 40 to 80 lb range, including a double header 30 and 50 lber!  Amazing fishing and what I like to see in July.  This is the most fish I’ve caught on a trip in a while and good to see.  This was all in 2 hours of fishing we finished up and caught some stuff for dinner after 9:30.  R.E. and Colin had a very special day fishing in the backcountry of Islamorada!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk