Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Thomas got to pull on some big tarpon today! The winds laid down nicely and it was a 180 from yesterday. We headed out early and found a big group of happy tarpon to start. First bait out we hooked a nice 150 lber within 5 minutes! We battled the fish for an hour and got her boatside several times. Thomas wanted to jump in and get a good shot with one, but I told him you really have to get lucky and get the right cooperative fish. This one eventually made one last hard run snapping the line. These big fish around the bridges are hard on our gear, so often it’s tough to get them to roll over as all you can do is pull hard. After that we left and tried another bridge. Again we hooked up pretty quick, and chased this fish down fast but he got us in the bridge and broke off after a few minutes. We set back up and them caught a big nurse shark. Things seemed to quiet down, so we moved around and then got on another pack of happy tarpon. We hooked one more that we chased into the bay, and had up to the boat again several times. Looked like we would roll this one over, pulled hard on the leader trying to stop her. But again one hard kick and she broke free! We set back up and then hooked another one about 20 minutes later. Again we got the fish chased down, in and out of the bridge. But eventually she swam in and we couldn’t stop her. After that we ran back towards home to try. Found a bunch more tarpon. No response so we moved around again, and had two more good zips on our baits. Not 💯 sure that they were tarpon, but definitely seemed like it with the pickup and run. Anyways we called it a day after that. 3 tarpon to the boat and a 4th we chased down before breaking us off, plus a couple more possible bites. Pretty good fishing, may tarpon fishing stays pretty hot! I’m off the next couple days hopefully getting my new boat soon. Looks like we have a nice stretch of weather, should keep the fish happy!  3 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Last day with John and Jan. Winds were howling a good 25 mph today mostly out of the east. Made for some blustery conditions out there. We decided to stay somewhat closer to home. We gave tarpon a whirl early on. Very tough conditions to fish, plus the sargasm weed was intense to say the last. Almost every bait you put out you were throwing it into patches of weed, so just a lot of clearing baits and not much clean fishing time for them. But we powered through and eventually got a few bites. Some sharks but then we jumped a tarpon! Soon after that a few more sharks, then finally John got hooked up on a nice 100 lb tarpon that we chased. A rough battle in choppy seas, but we got the fish boatside several times but he eventually went through the leader. Would’ve been tough to try to do much more with the fish with the rough conditions so we were happy with that, and got a few good jumping shots at least. After that we decided to leave the tarpon alone and went snapper fishing. Got our limit of nice snappers on cut bait and called it a day. Not too shabby and looks like it’ll be nicer for a while at least from what I see the next week they aren’t calling for more than 15 mph winds. Should be good for fishing. Back at it tomorrow they are saying we may get a little rain from this early tropical system thats developing, but I don’t think it’ll be too bad.  1 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Had John and Jan out for Day 2. Bit windier today and got worse as the day went on. Water definitely got a bit mudded out in many areas. We had planned to make a far run up the coast, but we got a little side tracked early. Found some tarpon where we had some action yesterday and gave it a whirl. John caught a nice 60 lb tarpon, and a big lemon shark as well. We stayed but things died out after that. We then decided to run further back in hopes of finding some more tarpon. Didn’t see much up there however, just a handful and they didn’t really want to respond. Last year in this area I had found big schools of tarpon fairly regularly, but this year I’ve yet to see them there. We bailed and tried some snook/redfish spots. First stop not much just a few trout, but second stop we got in a decent little bite, catching 10 or so redfish, and a couple decent snook. Then the catfish showed up and it was time to go! We tried for tarpon again on the way back, and had seen a few fish again in the area but the wind was really cranking now and they didn’t respond. But all in all another decent day had to work at it a little bit, but a backcountry SLAM for john with the snook, redfish, trout, and tarpon.  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing