Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Chris and Caylee today for a 3/4 day.  I told them it’d been tough the last couple days but they were down to give it a try and hold fast for tarpon.  We mixed it up and I tried some other areas.  We found a load of tarpon first thing with the last trickle of incoming tide after  we caught bait.  Tons of bait around too which is good to see.  The little sharks were pretty bad but we got through them and Caylee caught a 50 lb tarpon and then later on a 25 lber.  After the tide quit things slowed down, I hoped when it started falling the tarpon would turn back on.  But they seemed to have moved on.  We tried further up the channel and found a handful more, but no more bites they seemed like they were in a weird mood.  We tried a couple other spots, and got some more big sharks and some big jack crevelles, but that was all she wrote for the tarpon.  Oh well any day you get one is a good day, so I was thrilled we caught a couple – Especially after how slow the last couple days were.  Hopefully they’ll stay put and be there tomorrow, have a couple more days booked then open Wednesday and Thursday if anyone wants to go.  2 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Got out with Chester and his son Mike today, return clients who have fished with me several times over the last few years.  Tarpon was on the agenda.  I told them the last day I fished things got tough all of a sudden… weird wind directions (southwest) and the big groups of fish we’d been seeing the last month or two had kind of disappeared.  Today unfortunately was more or less a repeat of what we had the other day.  I tried mixing up my routine a little and tried some different spots.  We had good shark activity and got some blacktips and a hammer head early.   Moved a bit down the channel and did see a tarpon appear which we moved in the vicinity of.  Unfortunately no response though we did get another shark.  We moved out of that area and went back to where I’d been fishing mostly the last month.  Didn’t see a whole lot we tried a few areas that had been producing for me, one where we saw a good group of fish the last time I was out.  Nothing today though but a few more sharks.  We tried another channel mouth… not much happening.  One boat was further in the channel, we saw them hook a tarpon and then jump off another one.  We ran and got in that area, though seemed to be short lived we didn’t see any tarpon and they didn’t report seeing any more either and left.  We went up to the very end of the channel to try, did see one tarpon roll and I got excited again thinking maybe we’d get into a good school to finish the day… but no luck we did get plenty of blacktips and some spinner sharks though.  So again very few tarpon to report but a little bit of good news is another boat I talked to at the end of the day did say they saw a good group of fish in a channel I don’t normally fish a lot.  Will probably give that a look tomorrow as we are back at it, hopefully things get a little better.  I think it will once the winds swing back around to the east, kind of a double whammy right now of not good wind direction and not a lot of fish around.  Anyways glad the sharks kept us busy hopefully tomorrow will be better!  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Slow morning for us today I had Brian out from Oklahoma. Winds were light south and then turned more west and kicked up late morning, and had to dodge around a good bit of weather. Didn’t see a whole lot of tarpon but we did get into one good group that i would’ve sworn we’d of gotten a bite out of but they just weren’t happy and seemed to disappear as quickly as we found them. First day in a good while that we didn’t even get a bite but I guess I was probably overdue!  But we caught plenty of large blacktips and a few other critters to keep us busy. Anyways taking a day off tomorrow and then back at it Saturday for a few days.  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk