Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out today for a full day and tarpon was on the agenda.  I hadn’t been focusing on them a lot as of late, as other fishing had been very good.  Most the ones I’ve been catching have been whilst doing other things, or just spending a short time focused on them.  Though there had been lots of fish around and the fall mullet run going on.  We gave it a good go today though and invested a few hours, leaving the options open for Plan B if necessary.  Early on tarpon were showing everywhere, busting pods of mullet.  Though no big concentrations of them, really seemed you could sit anywhere and thered be a few around.  We fished hard, around the end of the tide, through the tide change, and then again on the start of the incoming tide.  Moved 3 or 4 times, and just no bites from them.  We managed several big lemon sharks, and a few big blacktips.  Finally after hour 2 and a few moves, we jumped a big 100+ lb tarpon but it was shortlived and threw the hook immediately.  After that, we decided to try plan B and were able to still catch a good handful of nice snooks, some nice reds, a decent black drum, juvenile goliath grouper, and a tripletail!  Wonderful thing about our fishery when things don’t work out, you often have other options.  We then fished some shoreline and got into some numbers of redfish and snook, though smaller size ones.  We still had some time to try for tarpon a bit for the last 45 minutes.  Gave it another go, but no love.

So sometimes things visually look much better than the actual fishing/catching is, as we saw tarpon busting all day long.  But as can be the case with fishing, they just weren’t interested in our offerings.  Maybe just too much other bait out there.  So I would say if you really, really want a tarpon it’s possible you just might have to invest your whole fishing day to do it.  But it’s kind of hard to do when there is so many other productive options with quality fish.  Though I’m always game to try.  0 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Gary and Melissa today for a 3/4 day.  Didn’t fish over the weekend and was happy not to be as we had howling 30+ mph winds from Friday through Sunday.  There was also a big tournament going on with 80 boats, so you can imagine every look nook and cranny where you could hide, there would of been boats!  But today the winds let up somewhat, it was still windy but a more manageable 20 mph northeast.  We decided to make a long trek up the coast to check things out up there as I’d heard the fishing had been pretty good with a mullet run in effect.  It took a little longer with the wind but we still made decent time that left us a good 3 hours of fishing time.  The wind swung around more northerly and the tides were high, which I was hoping the wind would be blowing offshore leaving it calm there but there was a little bit of a swell on the shore, which isn’t as desirable of a condition.  We mostly focused on our light gear and we caught a decent number of snook though mostly little guys, a handful of redfish which were larger (we did lose about a 12 lber on a pulled hook!), big ladyfish, jacks, a small goliath grouper, and finally a nice 25 lb tarpon!  He was just under 40 inches so small enough to legally boat for a picture.  There were more tarpon around but we didn’t focus a lot on them, but did get the one bite.  I have the same crew tomorrow, and we crushed the bait this afternoon coming home, so may give that more focus tomorrow.  Conditions are suppose to be better this week with the wind dropping to the 10-15 mph range but staying northeast which should keep the fall bait migration conditions in effect.  I’m booked up this week, but next week starting Monday I’m fairly open.  October is a fantastic time to fish here and as mentioned the fall bait run is already in effect so it should be good!  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out yesterday for a full day with my dad and a couple friends of his, Steve and Dana.  We mixed it up a bit, found some snook and redfish early on with the last trickle of incoming tide.  We did find some baby tarpon and my dad caught a nice juvenile we got to the boat but he jumped off before I could get him in the net, but had him on the leader for a while.  After that we caught a big old snook for Steve about a 17 lber, and nice cobia for Dana.  Not a whole lot doing after that though the water was super muddy as we had a hard west wind the day before.

I haven’t been fishing a whole lot else this week aside from a short half day several days ago.  The Contender was in the shop but I just got it back today so she’s ready for action.  But there have been a good number of tarpon out in the backcountry it appears.  Most my anglers have preferred mixing it up a bit though so I just haven’t really been concentrating on them.  But I have a lot of trips coming up after the weekend, so will probably spend a little time after the silver kings.  October is right around the corner, and that is probably the last good tarpon month we may have.  The conditions look ripe for a good fall bait run, in fact it seems to be starting a little bit already.  My favorite time of year to fish!  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing