Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

The tarpon bite was good today despite the weather.  The front that came in last night did not cool things down any.  The wind started out north though came northeast relatively quick.  We had good action at the channel 2 bridge tarpon fishing.  A few bites on the live baits that we missed, then caught one finally – a nice 35 lb fish that was great for pictures.  We ran back and set back up and within 5 minutes had another nice fish up of 85 lbs chasing live mullet.  This time my angler got it right and we hooked him and chased him through the bridge.  Landed him and after that we went out to bend the small rods for a bit.  The afternoon falling tide was good locally we fished the islamorada tarpon channels and we had 2 bites in the last hour, catching our last fish of close to 100 lbs.  Making us 3 for 6 for the day, we also caught a big ‘mud marlin’ that was almost 300 lbs.  Great day tarpon fishing islamorada in april!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Well had a 3/4 day trip today with regulars Dave and Roseann.   We ran into the backcountry to look for some tarpon.  It was horrible conditions which were unforeseeable unfortunately.  The dreaded ‘red weed’, this nasty mangy type of grass that comes in from time to time was horrendous.  It just gets all over your baits and lines and makes it pretty much unfishable as you have to clear your baits every 30 seconds when it is bad as it was.  So we abandoned that plan and decided to try to catch some mangrove snappers.  That worked out well and then we ran back near islamorada to try to tarpon fish for the last bit.  We saw a few rollers in an area that I frequent so we set up.  It took a little while but after 45 minutes we hooked a nice 85 lb fish that ran a good bit and put on quite a show.  We landed him and got some nice boatside pictures.  Caught a couple nurse sharks after that and no other tarpon bites as the tide had slacked and it was time to go in.  Looks like a mild front coming in later tonight, not a real temperature drop but west/north winds this afternoon and tomorrow.  That won’t help the tarpon fishing but shouldn’t push fish out.  Hopefully after it gets nice again we will get some big schools showing up, they have to be close!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

This morning had a half day.  We did some snapper fishing for dinner and then gave the last hour a try for a tarpon.  Got lucky and had a couple bites, hooking and catching one nice fish of 40 lbs or so.  This evening I had another tarpon trip.  We left a little early to get a bit more of the falling tide which was good the afternoon before. Today was tougher we did not really see many fish rolling and after an hour or so we did hook one and got him to the boat but he jumped off.  After that a few more sharks, a hammer head, and a big jack.  No sign of tarpon in a couple other spots.  We finally ended up dead baiting a channel edge and right near dark we had a couple good bites, one that seemed like a tarpon but no jump.  Then one that was a tarpon for sure.  We chased him down and got the leader on him.  But he pulled the hook before we could get good pictures.  Oh well fun action though.  Have a 3/4 day tomorrow we will see how it goes!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk