Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Well I got out the last two days and we had pretty slick nice calm conditions.  While December is usually not a great month for tarpon, when it slicks out and warms up a lot they can show up in a hurry!  We saw a decent amount yesterday on the 3rd, and today a bunch more!  Yesterday they did not bite for us really… we only gave it about 30 minutes in the morning and we saw a handful, then we did see a few more later in the day but again no love.  We did jump a small tarpon while catching some redfish and snook on our jerkbait however!  Though we had good action with multiple other species including redfish, snook, tripletail, sharks, and goliath grouper!  Today though we got into a big pack of tarpon first thing in the morning…  Just rolling and blooping everywhere, the type of thing that really gets your adrenaline going if you are a fishermen!  Unfortunately we had no tide so we had to wait a little bit for the tide to change.  Once it started moving, the fish kind of spread out a bit though.  With the water temperature chilly, they were not really as responsive as I’d like.  We moved several times, and caught some sharks.  After close to two hours, we were about to call it quits when suddenly my angler Rickys rod went off screaming!   A huge 150 lb tarpon came airborne and we were hooked up!  A few good jumps and some hard runs, and we got the fish boatside within 15 minutes or so.  However it was a battler and would not give up for us to get a good picture.  We spent about 20 minutes or so trying to get her to lay sideways… every time though she’d kick off and I thought we were going to lose her.  Finally though she laid up and we got a few decent pictures.  Unfortunately though one good kick of her tail and she busted off as Ricky had the leader wrapped around his hands for the picture taking.  It’s always hard to get good photos of big fish because of this, you leave yourself vulnerable while setting up for the shot and it only takes a kick of the tail for them to free themselves.  Anyways we got a decent shot or two.  That was all she wrote, we caught some redfish, trout, and a goliath grouper to end the day!  0 for 1 1 for 1

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

Well we had a good hard cold front the last couple days.  Today was the warming trend… the water was still cold but the wind swung east throughout the day and lost the bite of cold.  We had a banner day catching nice snook and redfish, but in the late morning it calmed down and really warmed up.  A few tarpon started to roll and we started pitching shrimp to them.  We caught 3 of them, two little guys in the 15 lb range, and one probably around 20 lbs to top off the day!  The last one we caught while fighting two redfish as well which made for a nice triple header!  It’s very hit or miss with tarpon right now, but throughout the winter you can catch small guys like these on shrimp occasionally.  I usually don’t book charters specifically for that, but rather when we are fishing spots for snook or redfish and they are around, you can work your bait differently and sometimes entice a strike.  If it gets warm and calm though, the big boys can show up and it can be game on.  But the winter time fishing so far for snook, drum, and redfish has been very stellar.  Check out my other website www.fishingislamorada.com for those daily reports.  3 for 3

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

Got out with Nolan, Shane, and Olivia today for a full day trip.  Nolan runs some charters up in the NC area and works as a sales rep for a rod company up there.  He wanted to try one of his rods for tarpon.  I told him tarpon fishing can be very hit and miss this time of year, but we had decent conditions to try it.  I was able to sneak out yesterday morning for an hour to catch bait too, so I got us some mullet and pilchards.  I definitely wanted to have some ammo and give it a 110% shot which we did!  We left early and headed into the backcountry.  We found a lot of tarpon busting off the shorelines, eating various glass minnows and finger mullets.  We could not get them to hit our baits too.  Not sure if it was the full moon last night, or cooler water temperatures.  They were active, but just not for the hook baits.  We fished the last hour of falling tide, and then tried again when it started in, but no love.  We bailed on that and then had to spend a good bit of time getting on a bite of snook and redfish.  But we did manage too and had very good fishing in one spot for reds and a good solid handful of snook.  We gave it some extra time at the end of the day as it slicked out nice and checked a few other channels for tarpon.  Didn’t see much but we did come across a few rolling in one channel at the very end.  We gave it another 20 minutes, but did not get a response out of them either.  Anyways there are still some around, but as stated it can be very hit and miss this time of year.  The cooler water temperatures some times make them not feed as actively, and when you are in the thick of a bait run some times those fish just don’t want to hit a hook bait when there are so many other options.  But thankfully right now the snooks and reds are thick and provide a good alternative.  If anyone wants to get out fishing though let me know, plenty of open days in December and the other backcountry fishing should remain solid.  0 for 0

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