Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

5/3/16 – I got out this evening with Craig and his buddy Jonesy last night.  They were after some tarpon and hadn’t had any luck yet, visiting from Bermuda.  I fished later in the evening from 6:30 to 10:00 and we had the incoming tide all night with a light westerly pre-frontal wind.  Fishing was pretty good we had ran down the road near channel 2 and made a big drift though a friend of mine had called saying they were biting in one of the channels. We had done well there the previous night so we raced back up there.  We fished with some live mullets at first though they weren’t super lively and when we were checking our baits after about 20 minutes, we got a bite on the 3rd rod a live crab we had out there.  We caught the fish and then set up to drift again and soon hooked a second tarpon we landed.  After that we had bites on the next two drifts though we missed them both and then things slowed down a bit as the tide slowed.  Anyways was glad to have gotten the guys each a fish.  2 for 4

5/4/16 – We fished all day today I caught plenty of fresh mullet early.  We started in the local channel where we had caught fish the last couple trips and there were some tarpon around.  We had a couple cheap shots, nice fish chasing the baits, but didn’t eat.  After that things slowed down and my customers said they’d love to catch a tarpon but didn’t want to spend all day trying for one fish necessarily, they wanted action.  So I decided to run into the backcountry where we would at least have some shark action and still a shot at a tarpon.  We didn’t get any tarpon bites but plenty of blacktips kept us busy.  We tried a few different areas and then tried near home again for the last hour but just had a couple sting rays that put up a good fight.  I did hear a few fish bit around town later in the morning though it’s tough to stay around for that on a full day trip especially when customers want to make sure they catch something.  Anyways today was prefrontal blowing hard out of the southwest and a front is hitting us no, temperatures are dropping to 70, not that I think the tarpon fishing can get much harder than it is!  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Got out into the backcountry today the winds were howling 20 out of the east.  We made it into the backcountry and fished the channels with the start of the incoming tide.  I only had a handful of baits so we had to make ’em count.  We caught plenty of sharks including blacktips and a nice hammerhead.  Then right when we were about through we hooked and landed a nice 50 lb tarpon for John.  He did well listening to my instructions and hooked the fish perfectly with the circle hook!  After that we did some light rod stuff and tried again for tarpon/shark for the last bit of the day, though not much else happened there.  Glad to have gotten another one this tough year.  1 for 1

Tonight I took Blake and his buddies that were suppose to fish with me the following day.  They had called me this evening and I decided I’d offer to take them late at night to catch the falling tide and then could take the next day off.  We opted for that and it was a good move.  There were tons of fish munching on all kinds of baits out in the local channels.  We got bit every drift for two hours but only caught 1 fish there missing the other bites but it was good activity and fun.  We went into another channel and didn’t hear near as much but we ended up landing two more tarpon so all three of the guys caught one.  Fun night and nice to have slept in and have the day off today.  Thursday I’m scheduled off too but may end up fishing it now we will see.  3 for 7.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

This morning we fished a half day for tarpon locally around islamorada.  Managed to get one early on a live mullet saw quite a few more fish than we did yesterday which was good to see.  Though after we caught ours the tide changed and didn’t see the fish rolling around anymore.  We tried another bridge and saw some fish but no response, then tried the channels near home and also saw fish but again no respone.  Did get a nice mutton snapper for dinner off the bottom rod.  Glad to have gotten one tarpon.  1 for 1

I fished this evening and slow fishing again we didn’t have a bite all night.  Saw a few fish in the local channels we tried early but didn’t get them to do much.  We tried around the bridges and didn’t see a whole lot.  Then tried the same channel again near sunset, saw a couple boats catch one fish, though myself and the other guy out there didn’t get a bite.  Anyways would of stayed a little later but the crew had to be in for dinner.  Full day tomorrow going into the backcountry I think.  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk