Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Chris and Jeff today for a 3/4 day of tarpon fishing in Islamorada.  Storms were brewin’ and we had a very stiff southeast breeze of about 20 mph, much more then the forecasted 12 mph.  We were able to sneak out and avoided getting soaked for the most part, staying in between two massive thunderclouds.  We got into the bait area and netted up plenty of bait and headed out where we had found tarpon the last few days.  Fish were there we set up and bounced around a couple times before getting into ’em.  We saw a few roll and plenty of fish floating by on the electronics.  However… no bite!  We got some sharks plenty of blacktips and a couple nurses.  I was surprised the tarpon weren’t responding.  We moved a little bit and realigned without success.  After 40 minutes or so then a squall blew up nearby and it started howling 35 mph for about 30 minutes.  This seemed to blow the tarpon out we didn’t see much with our eyes or on the machine.  We stuck it out and things did lay down and got a little nicer getting back around 15 mph, but more southerly wind which I never like but really didn’t look too bad.  I thought things would chirp up but no such luck, we looked around hard in the channel and decided to move to another area where I know some fish had been as well.  We got in there and it looked right, we saw a fish jump when we stopped and a few roll.  We set up and still no bites, made a move again and still no luck.  Frustrating.  We moved up the channel and had a few roll right in front of us and saw a few more, I set up thinking this would be it.  We sat for about 25 minutes and finally Chris hooked up!  Unfortunately the fish didn’t stay buttoned though, no angler error he was good about keeping the tip down and light pressure, but unfortunately the hook just pulled.  We caught a few more sharks and made one more move giving it an extra 30 minutes or so to try to put the boys on ’em cause I also hate when I don’t catch them.  But no luck.  We even slow rode out the channel looking all around because the wind did lay down more now and the storms had passed for the most part in that area, but didn’t see much.  So we headed on home with some foul weather near Islamorada it really wasn’t pretty but we got home safe thankfully.  Oh well we gave it a very hard effort 110% , extra time, etc… but sometimes you can’t make it happen.  Funny how the fishing can go from so good yesterday to so tough today but that’s fishing.  Anyways I am out of town for a week now I think it’ll be a nice time to be away as we have slightly windy conditions for the next week, not that it will be horrible for tarpon fishing but not the slick calm summer days we dream of.  Hopefully things will calm down and the stormy weather will be over with by the time I get back!  0 for 1

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

Got out with Peter and Ben for Day 2 today.  Wind was a little more easterly than yesterday, much better than the due south!  Little breezy to start but we had a window where it flattened to nothing for about an hour.  No tarpon the first few stops but we stayed in the same area to keep grinding, I figured the fish were there as they were pretty good yesterday.  Third stop was a charm and Ben got a nice 40 lb tarpon!  We then moved around a little bit and got into a good swarm of them.  The wind laid out as I said and we could see them pop up quite often.  We missed quite a few – a lot of smaller size fish that were just blowing the baits out and not getting hooked.  A couple maybe were angler error pulling back to soon, but most of them were not just bad bites.  Eventually we got another 20 lber for Ben and then missed a few more before finally finishing with another 20 lber.  I think we probably had 10 bites in all including one that we missed, casted back out, and literally ate it as it hit the water but missed again!  Also some sharks mostly blacktips.  We ran out of bait and tried to catch a little more but that was difficult at that point, so we just bent the light rods to finish the day catching a few trout.  But a good finish to July and my best month ever by a long shot!  3 for 10

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

Got out with Peter and his son Ben today for Day 1 of their two day fishing charter with me.  We headed out early and searched for bait.  Winds were kicking slightly out of the south, not my favorite direction, but not howling at least.  Bait was there but much harder to catch today we got one good shot on them and then they got very finicky running from us hard.  We got another shot on a handful after jumping around and then went to fishing.  Found some tarpon right nearby in the same channel near the bait, but no response out of them just some shark bites.  We headed back to where I’d been fishing the last few days to try.  Tide was starting out good and it was choppy so hard to see the tarpon showing.  We did come across a few and set up.  Not much action eventually got a shark and some catfish, did see a handful of tarpon start to roll and thought we’d get one but didn’t happen.  They just didn’t seem very happy maybe from the south wind or bright moon still, who knows.  Anyways after an hour or so and jumping around a couple times we left.  My buddy who was nearby did manage to get one after fishing hard for an hour.  We ran and checked some other channels where I hadn’t fished lately, hoping some new fish may have shown up there.  We got lucky and did come across a small handful that we set up on and soon Ben had a 50 lb tarpon landed!  That was it there though, we moved further down and then cam across a handful more and set up.  We got a bite out of a nice big fish probably a 100 lber who jumped and spit the hook, unfortunately the rod was in the rod holder at the time which sometimes is fine but overall it does cut your hook-up ratio down to about 50% from 80%, so I always suggest for people to hold them.  One less thing you have to worry about in keeping the rod down on the bite if it’s in your hand, cause when it’s in the holder its pointed up!  Anyways we shook it off and caught some big sharks there, nice blacktips and several nice lemons!  We found a few more tarpon after moving from there, but tide was almost dead and we didn’t get a response.  We were limited on bait and was gonna try to catch more real quick but nothing nearby that looked catchable.  Anyways we killed a little time and that allowed the tide to start moving.  We set back up with our few remaining baits and managed to get one more tarpon bite, allowing Peter to land a nice 30 lber!  Great way to finish up and glad we found some more fish.  Think we’ll go right there tomorrow hopefully they stick around, I think they will.  A couple more days and then I’ll be off on vacation but mid August I have plenty of days open so give me a shout, tarpon fishing can still be good!  2 for 3

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