Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out the last couple of days and I’m going out of town until next week right now.  But it looks like some tarpon may have finally shown up and settled into the backcountry… All July had been a little tougher fishing – we’d been catching some tarpon, but almost every day had been a grind with just a handful of bites.  Nothing super consistent, fish moving around, lots of rain/wind… not making it easy.  Well a couple of days ago I was fishing a half day trip and at the end we decided to check an area to just catch something big, so I figured why not check one of my tarpon areas as I figured we could at least catch a shark if nothing else.  Well sure enough the tarpon were there!  We only fished for 20 minutes and caught a few sharks… but it was a good sign.  Anyways the last two days we got out there and the tarpon were still there, and earlier in the morning on different tidal stage.  So I think they’ve settled in.  We had good fishing catching three out of five yesterday, and three out of eight today!  I can’t promise anything, but I think we may have a much better August for tarpon than July.  The winds are finally laying out now after blowing 20 mph for 10 days or so.  And looks like it might get real calm next week when I get back.  So if you are wanting to tarpon fish, don’t be afraid to ask me.  Business is going to really slow down here now after the first week of August, so I’ll often have availability short notice.  I also will shoot you straight with regards to how good I think it’ll be – I don’t really care to go if I don’t think we’re going to catch them these days.  But there area also other opportunities, we’re just getting into the time of year where last year I found some really good size snook, redfish, and even black drum in the late summer/fall, so I’m interested to see what happens there too.  So I’m pretty busy through the first week of August, but starting the 10th I have some open days.  And September can be good too, so don’t be afraid to ask about that either.

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

Well just to keep everyone updated unfortunately the tarpon fishing went and got difficult again right after having a very good day last week.  It looked like it was the day I’d been waiting for we had seen hundreds of fish, nice and calm, and they seemed happy.  We had a banner day landing 5 tarpon and thought they were there to stay for a while.  Though we went out the very next day and while still calm/ideal conditions, the big mass of fish was gone!  We still ended up catching a couple that day, but really had to work at it.  Now we’ve had 20 mph winds the last couple of days and a lot of rain, and more rain coming the next couple of days and wind through the end of the week.  So looks like July just doesn’t want to fire up like it normally does for tarpon.  We caught a tarpon today we didn’t have a ton of bait and made a long run but we made it happen, also got into a good handful of snook, and about a dozen juvenile goliath groupers.  So there are still fish to be caught so I would say just be open minded.  Baits been a bit difficult to get now unless you have the right tides so that sometimes determines things too.

All that being said, the tarpon could still fire up any day and I remember several years ago we had a tougher July/early August, and September/October ended up being very good.  So you just never know every year there are different patterns.  But I’ll shoot you straight if I think it’s worthwhile or not.

I’ve had a few cancellations so a handful of days have opened between now and the end of August.  Then come the second week of August I have quite a bit of availability.  So don’t be afraid to ask as I mentioned fishing can still be good and short notice I may have some days avaiable.

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