Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Mike and Joe for a couple of days.  Day 1 we focused on tarpon in the backcountry.  We found a nice fish early on, a good size one for the summer 75 lbs or so.  We got drenched in the process of fighting her but it was well worth it!  After that things slowed down but we found some more fish later in the day and had a fantastic end to the trip landing 3 more tarpon!  Also caught a tripletail, some sharks, and a few other odds & ends.  Today we focused on some goliath grouper and we caught a half dozen of those, smaller fish in the 5 to 30 lb range mostly on lighter tackle which was fun.  But we caught another tarpon on the way home.

Anyways the fishing in August is looking pretty good still for tarpon.  We’re seeing a lot of bait around and have had lighter winds, and sticking more to the easterly direction aside from the tropical storm we had nearby a week ago.  So far it seems a bit more consistent than our July, so don’t be surprised if we have good fishing through into October for tarpon.  After this coming week, I have plenty of availability.  Don’t be afraid to ask about tarpon fishing, I’ll shoot you straight if I think it’s worth going or not – to be honest in the off season I’d rather stay home if I don’t think the fishing is going to be good.

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

Well I’m back from my trip and have fished the last several days.  First day things got shuffled around big time on me.  We had that tropical storm graze by and that brought some heavy winds and rain while I was gone.  So it shuffled things up a bit.  My first day back, we only saw a handful of tarpon and no bait where I had done really well right before I left.  A rain storm then chased us away but it chased us too a bunch of bait so we caught that and looked in some other areas for tarpon.  We did find some but they were finicky, we managed 2, possibly 3, bites and hooked one fish we lost.  But that was about it for the day aside from sharks.  But day 2 I had the same crew and we fished a different area and after a bit of looking we found a good load of tarpon.  We ended up catching 5, so the guys made up for the day before!  The following day after that I had a different crew, and things again switched up a little.  We caught a tarpon right away where we had crushed them the day before, but that was it.  Saw a few more but they didn’t respond.  We only had a 6 hour trip, but we made one more move and looked in another area on the way home where I had not been in a while.  Sure enough after some hard looking we found more tarpon, and caught one more before it was time to go home.  So there are definitely fish around here in August, some days you make all the right moves and you may have phenomenal fishing.  Other days you may have to spend more time looking and fishing to get your bites.

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

We had great tarpon fishing the last couple days… figures now I have to go out of town!  But I think this could mean good things for August.  As these fish seemed settled in and were in the same area on different tides, several days in a row.  So August can still be good for tarpon most years it’s a little more hit & miss than July, but this year July was hit & miss and one thing I know from years past, it usually gets good and stable at some point in the summer so that may be yet to come.  I am booked a bit when I get back but mid august I have plenty of availability.

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