Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Scott and his family today for a full day trip.  Tarpon was on the agenda and I told them there had been some around and actually the last trip they bit fairly well for us.  However today we had a wind direction change… due south and backed up southwest in the backcountry areas.  Not my favorite wind, it just blows on shore and creates big swells, and muddies up a lot of the areas I like to fish.  But at least the water was nice and warm!  We made a run into the backcountry as I had bait leftover from the other day.  Did not see a ton of tarpon though a handful were about.  I was hoping to see a pile of them, but just wasn’t to be.  Anyhow, we set up and gave it a shot.  After 30 minutes or so, we finally did get a bite out of a fish.  A nice 80 lber went airborne, but unfortunately he threw the hook immediately.  Nothing went wrong just a bad bite.  After that things seemed to go real quiet we didn’t see much at all.  Anyways we decided to look for some other things as the redfish and snook fishing has been decent back there.  We stopped in another spot for tarpon for a quick minute, but no luck with that.  We did good on redfish though later, and a handful of snook and some nice sea trout.  Fished a few other areas and found reds in a couple other spots.  Did see a tarpon or two in a creek that we tried for, no bites out of them but did hook a couple big sharks.  And that was about it for our day.  Tomorrow looks like a complete 180 with the wind, going hard northeast, but then things calm down some Wednesday and get real nice Thursday though Sunday.  I’ll bet the tarpon do some big things in that period!  0 for 1

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

Got out with Trent and Shannon today for a full day.  Trent had the silver king tarpon on his bucket list.  We decided to give it a whirl.  Conditions looked OK, winds came down a little from the last couple of days, but still blowing decently but was suppose to lay down some in the afternoon.  We caught bait to start the day which was nice and easy.  Headed out into the backcountry to try some tarpon areas first.  Didn’t see a whole lot visually, and it was fairly muddy and churned up from the winds we’ve had.  But eventually saw a little activity, and felt we were in a good zone.  We set up, and soon had a big shark on that we pulled the hook on.  But next Trent hooked a nice 60 lb tarpon which we landed.  Put on quite a show and we got the fish on the leader boat side, but shook off before I could get any good boat side pics.  We decided to try for some other stuff after that, and had good luck with some redfish and snook.  But some smaller tarpon were about as well, and we jumped a couple of them and Trent landed one too!  After that once the tide started to change and come in, we ran into the gulf to look for tripletail which we found a few.  But we saw a tarpon jumping and found a little school of them out there.  Put the baits out and sure enough, hooked and landed our third tarpon of the day!  This one was a big full grown one about 125 lbs.  Awesome day with not so awesome conditions – very happy!  The tarpon definitely seemed happier today as far as how they were responding, I imagine if it calms down it’s really going to go off!  3 for 5

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

Got out with return customer Irv and his buddy Bill.  We decided to stick to the backcountry with possibilities of small tarpon and hopefully snook, redfish, and the like.  Today the wind was cranking 25 mph southeast, with a little bit of rain to dodge as well.  We caught some dinner fish early, and then picked away at a few redfish and snook in some spots in the everglades.  But we eventually got in an area loaded with small tarpon.  Tide was coming in, and they were happy!  We had a good rally, hooking about 6 of them and landing 3 with a technical release on a 4th to the boat.  Then they shut off.  But it was fun!  The little tarpon are funny like that if you hit ’em at the right time, they bite good, but otherwise it can be like waiting for grass to grow waiting for a bite.  Anyways we made a good move today and had great fishing despite tough conditions.  Back at it tomorrow, tarpon is on the list so we’ll likely be trying it at some point.  4 for 6

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