Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Well it was nice to be a rockstar today after a couple slower days in a row.  Fishing hasn’t been easy but if you get in the right spot at the right time, it’s been very good.  Thats what we did today.  First stop we found a good number of tarpon and the sharks weren’t too bad.  We were able to catch several and then do other things the rest of the day.  I had my regular customers Barry Bicket and Sarah Cross over from the UK.  The last couple hours of incoming tide produced four bites and we landed all four fish.  After that we caught a bunch of snook and a few redfish, just one of those days where everything cooperated, which those days have been few and far between as of late!  Bait was thick with several big balls of mullet seen as we ran out, though as we lose our morning incoming tide that bait may got much tougher to catch.  Looks like we have some wind the next few days with some bad weather possible tomorrow too.    I have a half day will probably stay close to home, hopefully we can catch one early on!  4 for 4

6/15/17 – Had return customer Chase out with his brother Grant and father.  We had a tough day never really found many tarpon that wanted to cooperate.  Plenty of sharks though.  We did find one decent group of tarpon in the late morning, but just couldn’t get them to bite.  We worked hard at it too.  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Emory today for a half day tarpon fishing charter.  Normally I don’t do many half day trips this time of year since the bait is much easier to catch in the backcountry, and the fishing is usually better too.  But we had a slow day back there yesterday and I was able to save some bait, so figured wed just try to hit some local spots early and hope it’d be better for us.  The early bite was good though it was all over by 7:00. We caught a nice fish of about 75 lbs, and then had another one on that we pulled the hook on.  After that things slowed down.  We ran down to the bigger bridges, didn’t see a whole lot of anything, no more bites in a few spots down there.  Tried out on the oceanside and did find a handful of fish out there, but the tide was dying and they were not responding.  We tried back near home for the last 30 minutes and had the incoming tide, but didn’t see much.  Anyways glad we went early and got our fish.  Tomorrow I’ve got a full day, may try locally first thing and then shoot back into the backcountry.  I heard today it was much better where I was fishing yesterday… as I’ve been saying it’s really day to day, one day they are pulling you out of the boat, the next day you don’t even get a sniff!  1 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out with Joe and Cara down from Ohio today.  Tarpon was on their list and they wanted to pull on ‘big stuff.’  We focused on that and did a 3/4 day.  I caught some mullet on the way out, we found some big massive schools where it was fairly easy to load up.  We hit the channels where I’d been having some luck, though today luck wasn’t on our side.  We had a variety of sharks in the first stop, moved around a little, but no tarpon love.  We tried out at the channel ends where I had found a good pack yesterday and had caught several, but today again no love though we did get a big sawfish.  A boat next to us on the other side of the channel did get in front of a couple fish and had a couple bites, landing one.  Next stop we finally actually saw a fish roll, and we moved to get in front of it.  Though again no bites, just a bunch of bonnethead sharks.  We hit one more channel and again made a couple moves, but didn’t see much.  Got a big blacktip shark and then a nurse shark, and that was all she wrote.  Joe and Cara had a good time though and did get to catch some big stuff, and the sawfish was really cool something they’d never seen in Ohio!  Tough day just not many tarpon out back right now, and I heard the local ‘around town’ bite was slow as well, though there were some fish around locally.  Not sure what I’m going to do tomorrow, may try some local spots early and hope we can get one while it’s still dark.  Really hope some new fish show up and fast!  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk