Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out today for a 3/4 day with Dennis and his daughter Molly down from Minnesota.  They didn’t have any specific requests for fishing, so I suggested we do a mix of light tackle and then try for some bigger stuff possibly tarpon and sharks.  Things worked out great we had good action with trout in the morning and did that for a little over an hour or so.  Then we checked a couple tarpon spots.  Nothing in the first set of channels, I had thought maybe some fish would of pushed in there with the weather warming up but didn’t see much though I didn’t try fishing it either.  I ran back to where the big school of tarpon was a few days ago, and there were still a few there!  They weren’t stacked up like the other day, but after a little looking around I started to see some signs of them.  We set up and within 15 minutes or so had a nice 75 lb fish on that Dennis caught.  We caught a few sharks too which Molly loved, and then she got to catch a tarpon roughly the same size as dads.  It jumped like crazy and hit the boat, we got the leader on it, but then the hook pulled before we could get a good picture though a legal catch.  After that we headed home and stopped to catch bait for tomorrow on the way.  Not sure what I’m doing tomorrow but I think I have a half day so may be fishing closer to town if it’s for tarpon.  2 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Well today it got flat calm and conditions were ‘right!’  We caught some mullet on our way out, found some birds bombing on a flat and were able to get nearby in the channel and catch enough bait in a half dozen throws of the cast net.  We ran back into the everglades where we had found the tarpon yesterday, but today I knew we’d have tide all morning plus loaded with fresh bait so it was a good scenario.  The tarpon fishing was epic… I had Steven and his son Mason from Arkansas.  They had fished here before offshore, but never in the backcountry.  Today was their lucky day!  We proceeded to mash the tarpon… going 6 for 12 in about 3 1/2 hours!  It really does not ever get any better than that.  Around noon time, the boys had had their fill so we decided to just do some rod bending.  We caught plenty of trout and a handful of ladyfish.  Just an awesome day, the one i’ve been waiting for!  Definitely the best day I’ve had this year, though tomorrow it sounds like it’s suppose to change and blow 25.  Good thing I’m taking off.  Hopefully some of these fish will continue pushing through into the backcountry and locally here.  6 for 12

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Gave the tarpon a shot again today.  We had some leftover bait from the last few days.  Mullet were not very easy where I looked today, so didn’t give it very long trying to catch them.  We caught some trout and ladyfish in the bay then tried some of the backcountry channels for big stuff.  Tide was coming in, fairly weak tide still but better than it was a few days ago.  We had plenty of shark activity and caught a nice cobia just under size.  After that we ran further into the backcountry to check some other areas for tarpon.  We found the mother load, tarpon busting as far as I could see!  We set up and within 10 minutes we had a nice 100 lb fish on.  We fought him for about 40 minutes and landed him.  After we set back up though the tide started to quit and the fish slowly dispersed.  We caught plenty of more blacktip sharks, but alas no more tarpon bites.  The water was still chilly, but with the calm weather it started to get on a warming trend, getting back up around 71 degrees at least.  Hopefully tomorrow will still be good, then Friday it’s suppose to blow like crazy so the tarpon may not like that.  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk