Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with return customer Bill and his dad Bill down from Pittsburgh.  We got out early and after some tarpon.  Found a good new school in an area which was great to see.  Good numbers of fish all fresh and happy looking.  We had dead tide when we got there but after a little bit of time we still managed a bite and Bill Sr. caught a big 130 lb tarpon!  Great fight and nice jumps.  The tide got rolling and we jumped one more right away then had a bunch of sharks.  We moved around a bit and then Bill Jr. got a nice 50 lb tarpon.  We ended up with two more tarpon in the 80 and 100 lb range, just great fishing!  We finished our day catching a couple triple tails to eat and a few trout as well.  I’m off tomorrow and back at it Saturday.  Looks like the weekend weather will be fantastic and suppose to stay calm.  But then on Monday the wind machine is cranking up a bit and it’s going to blow 15-20 all week so it says right now.  But at least it’s a good direction north east.  Hopefully the tarpon will stay happy I think they will as we are in prime time now.  4 for 5

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

Got out with Doug and Allen today for their last morning with me.  We fished last night and had good fishing on my only night trip of the year.  Winds were steady out of the north and a bit chilly but not real cold.  I thought the fishing would be a bit better then it was.  We didn’t do much early on and took a while to find some live bait.  We did finally get some and then set up and as we were trolling around the bridge we had a big fish destroy a mullet!  It was a commotion  getting through the bridge but we did and landed the fish in spectacular fashion!  A nice 90 lber or so.  It was good we got it boatside for pictures as the fish last night didn’t cooperate for that.  Didn’t do much after that and only saw one other fish caught.  Back to my full day routine tomorrow and possibly going to head out into the backcountry depending what the winds do, heard some fish had moved into some areas back there.  Would love to get away from the crowds again!  1 for 1

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

Got out for two half days today morning and evening fishing around islamorada for tarpon.  Actually this morning we did a 3/4 day 6 hour trip.  We left early and I was glad we did.  Fishing was good to start we hooked 3 tarpon and landed 2 in the first hour.  After that the tide quit and it was very slow to get going the other way.  Also very calm and clear water, so not ideal for our tarpon fishing locally!  We moved around a bit and saw plenty of fish but didn’t have much action after that.  We ran all the way further south to the bigger bridges and gave it a whirl there.  Just a ton of fish but not much doing, we saw a couple boats catch fish out of the dozen or so that were there in about an hour.  By 10:30 though we had a bit of activity, we hooked a fish on our flourocarbon leader as i had to scale down due to the clear water.  Unfortunately though he went through the leader right away, sometimes that’s the problem with doing that you get the bites but they don’t often stay on there.  Some guys leave the drags super light and just race them down to get a ‘catch’ but sometimes thats what you must do.  Anyways after that we had a few good cheap shots and blow ups on our live baits but no other takes.  2 for 4

This evening was a little better we didn’t find much at our first stop, a few fish but no action aside from bonnet head sharks.  At one of the bridges though we found a pile of tarpon and they were fairly happy.  We had 3 solid bites and landed two nice fish on our live baits.  Didn’t cooperate for good boat pictures though as we pulled the hooks as soon as we really started to pull on them.  We had another 7 or 8 fish blow up our mullets too which was very exciting.  By 7:00 though the tides slowed down again and everything seemed to die out.  Anyways two good trips landing a couple tarpon on each one, we’ll take it!  Looks like we have some wind swinging around with a weak cold front we are getting, but not going to blow very hard nor should the temperatures drop.  Have a half day with my guys from this evening tomorrow, hopefully it’ll be good!  2 for 3

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