Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Jeff and his son Brock today.  Winds kicked up from yesterday’s flat calm… a good 15 mph southwest breeze.  Not our favorite wind direction!  We headed out early and bait was still fairly easy at least.  We picked a few redfish after that then looked for tarpon.  They hadn’t bit well on the incoming tide the last few days, but we had a couple hours of it so it was worth looking.  We did see a few fish and gave it a whirl.  No reaction though, we moved a good 3 times, and got in front of fish I thought each time.  But they didn’t seem to continue to come by as they do when they’ve been biting.  Sharks weren’t too happy either but we did manage a big nurse shark and sting ray.  We bailed and tried a few other snook/red spots.  Got one small snook, and a few nice trout in one spot.  Then we got the reds going a little bit more, probably caught a dozen or so though sharks got 3 or 4 of them unfortunately.  The tide changed and we gave the tarpon a shot again.  But didn’t see a whole lot now.  Again we moved around and fished hard, got in front of a few fish but again just didn’t seem to be a lot of them coming by once we set up.  Gave it a good extra 30 minutes and tried another channel where we had a few bites several days ago.  But just not much activity, we did finally jump one fish but one of those bites where they didn’t even bend the rod over just jumped and the bait was out of his mouth before it even pulled… characteristic of when they aren’t happy!  Oh well unfortunately that put an end to a good streak of catching, I think around the last 25 trips or so we’d gotten at least 1.

July hadn’t been anything like last year though at least it’s still been consistent, and we’ve had plenty of other opportunities for things like redfish, snook, tripletail, trout, and such.  I’ve got the day off tomorrow, then fishing Friday, then I’ll be out of town for a week.  Hoping August we might have some red hot fishing or at least where it gets easy and we don’t have to think about it so much!  Won’t know until it gets here though.  0 for 1

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

Awesome day 2 with Kim and Rosie from Australia. The weather slicked out and wind quit for a change. We headed out early in search of bait and tarpon. Bait was fairly easy though messy again, but glad to get them. Didn’t see a whole lot of tarpon early on the last of incoming tide. We checked 3 or 4 spots. Yesterday though they didn’t bite great then either though we did see some, but only saw 1 or 2 random ones early. We decided to bail and fish other stuff until the tide changed. Caught a nice snook and a few trout in one spot, and a shark got another snook. Ran to another spot and got into a good redfish bite catching a couple dozen or so. Sharks here too but we only lost 1 thankfully. The tide quit and we went looking for tarpon again. The same grounds that were not lively early now looked fishy. We saw several fish in the area and set up. Soon Rosie was hooked up and caught one, and a little later got another. She definitely had the hot hand. Kim got a monster snook though later, completely random but always love finding those big breeders this time of year. Rosie jumped and caught another tarpon. Then finally Kim had his shot and got a tarpon! He also caught 1 more big breeder snook that we got a long distance release on. Just action packed with quality there for a while. We caught a few sharks too. Tried another spot to finish the day, hoped to find some permit but no luck. Though we did hook a big Goliath but unfortunately he rocked us up and we could not budge him. All in all though a banner day. Love those slicked out summer days!  4 for 5

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

Great 3/4 day with Jimmy and Carsten from Denmark. We stuck to where I’ve been finding tarpon the last week or so, since we didn’t see much up the road yesterday. Bait was a little easier for us. Found ’em early on with the last of the incoming tide, but they didn’t want to respond! We didn’t even have a shark bite… Kind of strange. We fished hard and after an hour the tide quit. We did look around in another area as the wind laid out nicely while we waited for a tide change but didn’t see much. We ran back to where we started after the tide switched and right away saw a few tarpon showing some signs. We set up and soon Jimmy jumped one. A few minutes later we got a nice one to stick… Big 80 lber! Carsten caught him and did a great job fighting it. After that we set back up, and a little later he got another 40 lber. Jimmy got a couple sharks too. We jumped one more tarpon off after that. The tripletails popped up nicely too on the out tode and we caught 4 or 5, including a nice 12 lber! Back home for lunch, back at it tomorrow!  2 for 4

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