Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Well the weather was nice today and looks to be tomorrow as well.  November tarpon fishing in islamorada can still be possible with these conditions!  No major cold fronts yet and the mild northerly winds have pushed lots of bait down the coast.  We commonly refer to this as the ‘fall bait run.’  Lots of black mullet mostly.  Tarpon around the mainland really go nuts on these guys, today for instance there were literally rivers of mullet with tarpon busting them from 20 to close to 200 lbs!  We had to wait for the incoming tide before bait was really catchable.  But we made a throw of the net and had a load of bait.  Tarpon were all off the beaches as well as in the canals – slick calm conditions which they like!  We fished for an hour this afternoon for them and caught 2 nice tarpon.  The fresh black mullets did the trick.  We are suppose to be getting some cooler weather and once the temperatures really drop that is usually it for most the tarpon fishing I do until the spring, but other great options are possible fishing the florida keys in november.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

November Islamorada Tarpon

Well we got out today and had a lot of fun.  We had plenty of mullet from the previous day iced down nicely and a load of pilchards.  We had some good snook action in the morning on pilchards.  We then found lots of busting and free jumping tarpon offshore in the east cape sable area.  The end of the falling tide seemed to have them very active.  We set up and shortly after had about 3 fish in the air within an hour.  Unfortunately we did not get the hook set good enough in any of them, though we did land plenty of other fish including sharks, cobia, and grouper.  The fall mullet run is occurring so tarpon fishing can still be good, I am fishing all this week and then going out of town.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
rick@islamoradatarpon.com

Well we are still in off season mode here so only getting out a handful of times a week.  To top things off the everglades national park is closed as of oct 1. due to the government shutdown.  We have been having to make the best of it fishing the local bays, bridges, and patch reefs.  It didn’t stop us from having a great half day today.  My angler wanted tarpon which is still possible in october.  There are plenty of nice pilchards around for live bait which we caught in the morning.  We fished for smaller stuff for a while then hit the bridges for tarpon.  We hooked one early that broke us off in the bridge down around channel 5.  Tried another spot but no luck, then fished near the bridges by bud n marys.  Caught some big jacks and eventually hooked this nice 45 lb tarpon on light 20 lb spin gear.  What a battle, almost an hour but we got him.  October florida keys fishing can be great, lots of bait around and once the park opens back up it should be game on!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
305-747-6903
rick@islamoradatarpon.com

october islamorada tarpon