Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Ken and his wife today for some tarpon fishing in islamorada.  We headed out early and stopped for bait, the bait was nice and easy for a change.  We also didn’t have any rain or storms to chase us around which was very nice too.  Was able to load up and even have some leftovers for the next day or two.  We tried our morning area where the fishing had been decent the most part the last couple weeks.  Saw a couple roll and we moved over to ’em but didn’t have a bite and didn’t see much after that.  We tried moving a bit but no luck.  We then went up inside on of the channels nearby, and saw some fish in there, but still no response.  We made a couple moves again trying to get in front of different fish, but just no love.  I checked one more area out that I hadn’t really been in yet this year, and we some some splashes.  I set up and then noticed some bigger busts on the other side of the channel.  We moved over there, and then start to see a few fish roll and marked them on my machine…  I knew it was game on.  We had a double header bite, but unfortunately Ken’s came off, though his wife caught the other one.  Ladies always seem to have that luck!  After that we jumped another one off in the rod holder, and had another mystery zip that I’m sure was likely a tarpon since we had no shark bites in there.  Ken then caught a couple tarpon, one nice one of about 75 lbs or so, and the other was about 50.  After that the tide quit, we tried to catch a few trout on the way home which was a little slow, but got one and a few ladyfish and a shark.  After that we were all worn out and hot and headed in a few minutes early.  But all in all a great day it took a little work to find ’em, but luckily we kept grinding and had a great day to show for it.  3 for 5

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Got out with Brandon and Chad today down from Georgia.  Tarpon was the desired species.  It was fairly windy with a north breeze when we got into the backcountry that turned to south/southeast later in the day.  Mullet were hard to come by we had to work hard but were able to put a good catch of bait together.  Rain was chasing us around too.  We tried fishing the area where there’d been some fish early in the morning, saw one jumper.  We set up but the rains came and I decided to just boogey where I had good tarpon action the few days before where there was no rain.  We got out there and saw some tarpon – good sign.  But we weren’t able to get them to respond, we moved several times, got in front of some good schools, but just no bites.  After a while they seemed to disappear too, as I’d been seeing them rolling and splashing a lot every time i’d been out there, so when it went quite I was worried.  We looked further down the mainland, but didn’t see much for tarpon life.  I then tried some other channels that I hadn’t fished the last few weeks since my routines been working.  Though those areas all seemed dead… we fished 3 different channels, and idled through another one, and never saw a tarpon for sure.  We caught a few sharks, and a big sting ray, and that was it.  Anyways we worked hard at it and went through a lot of bait, hopefully it gets a little easier.  I’m off tomorrow, then just a half day on Saturday, should be back to the tarpon grind on Sunday.  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

Got out with David and his sons Tanner and Hunter over from Texas today.  Tarpon was on the agenda and we focused on that early.  Caught some bait on the way out it was a little easier than yesterday, but not as much as I normally like to see with the nice incoming tide we had.  But we got enough.  No tarpon early on I tried the area we were yesterday morning, never saw any rollers but did see a few busts and thought I had marked a few, but no bite.  We did get a few sharks and a ray.  After an hour or so and a couple moves, the tide quit so we ran out to the west to try.  Got right on top of a big herd of tarpon and we were able to actually fish away from the little shark craziness which was nice.  It was funny the sharks were nearby but we found a small patch of water where they just weren’t really messing with us, and the tarpon were there, so that made life easy for a little while.  The boys each caught a nice tarpon, dad unfortunately jumped both of his off.  After that though the tarpon disappeared, though there were still some out in the sharky area though they were too hard to get past.  After that we checked a few wrecks for permit, but no love, and we called it a day.  2 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk