Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out for a couple days on 3/13/24 and 3/14/24… tarpon fishing again in the everglades backcountry.  The winds swung back around to easterly/southeasterly, which is what we like this time of year in the spring.  The weekend before as mentioned we had a late mild cold front, so the winds had done a big loop from south to west to north… though it did not actually get very cold at all.  We had fished in that north wind the day before and still caught some tarpon.  So on Tuesday we had good fishing we ended up catching 4 tarpon… one very large one in the 130 lb class, and others of various sizes.  Bob, bobby, and Joe all got to land one and almost all got good pictures with there fish boatside!  Sharks weren’t bothering us so we were able to do this – often times we can’t anymore these days because of them.  And we did have to break one fish off boatside to avoid letting it get eaten.  I will say the bite wasn’t necessarily ‘red hot’ as those were the 4 bites we had all day.  But that is still great fishing to land 4 tarpon in a day I’ll always take that!

On 3/14/24 the fishing was honestly very similar we caught one bigger tarpon first thing.  We then jumped around for an hour or two without getting bit again, though the tarpon were all over the place flopping and jumping!  I did notice it seemed not many people were hooking up it was a big fleet out there.  But eventually we did get another one and Bob got his chance to get a facegrab on one.  After that it went kind of quiet again but then all of a sudden we jumped one more fish, and a few minutes later hooked another and caught it.  Then we finished up with one more a little later.  So we went 4 for 5 on the tarpon… another good day indeed!  I had heard the incoming tide in the late afternoon the fish were a little happier, but that can all change day to day and even hour to hour sometimes.

Anyways the forecast looks pretty decent for a while.  We do have a little north wind again Tuesday but I don’t think it’s getting cold, and no heavy wind until possibly next weekend but that could definitely change as it’s a week away.

I’ll also mention Capt. Trent had some great fishing yesterday (3/14/24) they caught several tarpon fishing around the Bay islands, along with some snook, snappers, and groupers!  He is available for evening trips starting now.  So anyone wanting to get out last minute for a 4PM to 8PM trip, he can do it.  The evenings are a great time to fish as the bite often gets better as you get closer to sunset.  And those trips don’t book up as much way ahead of time, so if you are down here for several days and the weather is good and you get the itch, we can often set it up with a few days notice and sometimes even a few hours!

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

Had good long time repeat customer Irv out today for some tarpon fishing in March.  We had a weak late cold front come through over the weekend.  It blew good out of the south on saturday, then west yesterday, then north today, all 15-20mph little bit windier.  Though that is not unusual wind for March.  Thankfully the temperatures didn’t really drop at all we just got the dryer air out of the north.  I was a little worried the tarpon would be tough out back sometimes they can get put off with a weather change like this.  But you really don’t know unless you get out there.  I did hear the fishing was a little tougher over the weekend but with the wind directions they had it made it pretty tough where we’d been finding the tarpon.  With the north wind today it wasn’t too bad out there honestly.  We made the trek back there and we had a load of bait I had caught yesterday afternoon so we were in good shape.  We had falling tide most of the morning and the water was pretty muddy.  Saw a few tarpon bust as soon as we got out in the area.  No big groups of concentrated fish just everything spread out.  But sure enough we started fishing and working around and we caught one.  Moved a few times after that and about an hour later we got another one.  Also a hammerhead shark and a lemon shark which was cool.  The tide quite around 11:00 and we made a bigger move just to check some different areas but didn’t see much.  We wound up going back to the same general area we had our morning action and once the tide changed we ended up catching one more tarpon.  So not bad for not so great of conditions 3 tarpon for Irv!  Looks like the rest of the week is moderate easterly wind so it should be ideal conditions.  Capt. Trent had a big day today too they said they caught 5 tarpon fishing locally, a few big ones and he got into some juveniles too.  So great to hear that!  If you are wanting to get out short notice, Capt. Trent is available for evening trips now too and not many boats are out that time of day so you can have it to yourself and also book a little more short notice to see what the conditions are going to be.

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