Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Scott, Charlie, and Roger, return customers from last year today.  We headed out into the backcountry around 6, a little later than I’ve been going.  It was a group trip and there was a little miscommunication but no worries.  Luckily there has been some fish showing up closer in the backcountry.  Bait was my main concern.  A fellow captain though was nice and made an extra throw and gave us a few, and we got lucky and got a throw on about 40 nice baits ourselves.  Right now that extra few minutes getting their at day break can really make or break your day with regard to getting the bait…  It can be catching plenty of bait in a few minutes, or spending a couple hours trying to wrangle up just enough.  So make sure to always be there at the dock on time and double check departure times especially with guys like me who like to go early!  We found fish in the channel where we got them yesterday.  We got a good one to start a nice 60 lber.  Then the sharks found us.  We moved further down and got another one, about a 50 lber.  Tide quit and we waited, moved around a bit and more sharks.  Still saw plenty of tarpon.  We made a couple more moves but just never got the tarpon going again.  Funny because yesterday they were feeding hard on the incoming tide, today not so much.  Anyways we decided to go check some other areas, and we found some more tarpon.  We ended up getting one there, a nice 75 lb fish to finish our morning.  Seems like tarpon have shown up in a lot of different places.  I’ve been waiting for this – it’s my favorite time of year when things get consistent and it’s much more easy on me lol.  I imagine the next month or so we should have really good fishing and hopefully through into August which can definitely still be good too.  3 for 3

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

Got out with Chris and his son Thiago for a full day of tarpon fishing today.  I planned on the same routine as I’ve been doing the last couple weeks as it’s been working out well.  We headed out early, I thought weather may be an issue as thunderstorms were in the forecast, but luckily everything dissipated as we ran back and didn’t bother us.  We got back to the fishing area and where I’d been catching bait and looked around.  There had been acres of bait everywhere back there, but today it was a different story!  We didn’t see any of the big bait schools, a few little groups but nothing very catchable.  We tried and ended up just getting 1 bait.  I did have a few left over from yesterday and I could see the tarpon were in the area.  So we gave it a shot.  Unfortunately the tarpon didn’t respond, we moved a couple times and did catch a few sharks and rays, but no tarpon bites.  We looked a bit more for bait and then I decided to make my way back towards home and try some other areas.  We did find a bait school a little ways on the way back but they were very timid.  We got one decent throw and caught another dozen, but I didn’t think that would be enough to get the job done.  So we were planning on trying to catch some ladyfish when I was able to get ahold of my buddy.  He said he could give me a couple dozen baits and he had some luck with the tarpon earlier.  So we ran over to him and got the bait and then set up in a nearby channel.  The tarpon were pouring threw, more then I’ve seen in a long time!  The sharks were tough to deal with though and were biting our baits at a furious pace.  We got through and caught a tarpon though early on, and then moved around a got another one, so Chris and Thiago had both caught one.  My buddy came in and we watched him hook a triple header of tarpon!  We ended up jumping a couple more, and then moved over near where he was since he was leaving and Thiago caught another one.  Then we moved back there and finished the day with a nice double header of tarpon!  Wow what a day and that was all in the last couple hours alone.  Some times you get burned taking the long run and going the distance, it’s part of the fishing game.  And catching bait is part of it to and sometimes that is easy and sometimes it’s difficult or downright impossible.  But personally I’d rather go for the gusto where you stand the chance of having an epic fishing day for fish like tarpon.  Luckily today things fell into place where we had something to fall back on to, which sometimes isn’t the case.  But I think I’ll be sticking to some of these closer areas for now as more fish seemed to have moved in and it seems to be stabilizing.  Or if I decide to make that long run to at least have a little more bait stashed away.  Of course that bait may show back up when the west wind dies as it was still a bit out of the west today which often makes funky things like that happen.  Back at it tomorrow.  5 for 8

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

Got out with Dave, Jack, and Wally for a full day of tarpon fishing.  They were down from NJ father, son, and grandfather – 3 generations of fishermen!  Tarpon were the target.  I told the boys we had a decent day yesterday the west wind didn’t shut the fish down so I figured today may be OK too.  We caught some bait on the way and made a go of it.  Fishing was very good first cast Dave got a big old snook, and a little later Jack got an even bigger one!  Then we proceeded to catch 7 tarpon out of 11 bites!  It was just crazy multiple fish for everybody on board.  The guys did a fantastic job listening and fighting the fish the proper way so we had a pretty good catch ratio.  The bite lasted really the whole time we were there though at the end the big sharks moved in.  We caught some big blacktips, lemon sharks, and sting rays too.  Just incredible not going more than 5 minutes without a bite!  Back at it tomorrow hopefully this lasts a bit longer!  7 for 11

P.S. Tarpon under 40 inches may be lifted out of the water for a quick picture we try to be very careful and not drop them and release them quickly afterwards.

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