Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Got out with Andrew Forbes and his family today for a 3/4 day trip.  They were leaving it up to me as far as what to do, wanting to either do a half day of ‘rod bending’ or tarpon fishing which I told them would take a little more time.  The conditions got right yesterday afternoon so I said it looks good for that and they were game.  We headed out early, beautiful day slick calm back there.  We found some bait took a couple spots to get on it right but we did and loaded up.  We then looked around where we found all the tarpon yesterday afternoon.  They were waiting for us so that was good!  Sharks got us a bunch in the first stop though tarpon were rolling pretty good nearby.  We moved around and then soon got a nice 100 lb tarpon!  After that things quieted down, but the tarpon were definitely around.  We had one grab a bait and jump sideways throwing the bait out.  Then we had another zip us real hard and drop the bait as well.  Hook one that we got to the boat real quick and then took off, thinking it was a shark, and then he jumped and spit it but we did get him to the leader for a technical release.  They were beating us up!  After that we jumped one more fish I think and then caught another one finally to the boat for pictures!  A few other sharks including a nurse shark and some big old catfish.  By 11:00 the tide quit and it was time to go.  But great action and three tarpon releases not too bad!  Looks like it should be fairly nice though the weekend, then perhaps a bit of wind next week.  At least for now it looks like it’ll be more southeasterly wind instead of southwest like we had a few days ago, that was terrible!  Hopefully the tarpon won’t mind, I’ll miss the slick calm like we had today for sure.  3 for 6

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

Got out with Clark and his dad Dwight for a full day of tarpon fishing.  We headed out early in search of bait as I was fresh out after staying close to home the last couple days.  We still had a little nasty southwest wind, but it laid off somewhat from yesterday and got nicer as the day went on and was swinging more south/southeast by days end.  To start we didnt’ see much for bait and we looked in several areas.  I missed them though and my buddy called me and got them good in one of the channels we did not go through.  He was nice enough to make a throw for us which saved us for sure.  We tried some channels in the back, didn’t see a whole lot but did catch a few big lemon sharks.  Finally saw a tarpon roll and moved nearby but no bites.  Tide was still falling and we checked another channel.  Saw a little activity on the surface but not sure what it was, after a bit another shark and then we definitely saw a tarpon roll, followed by another a little later and then another.  Seemed that there were a few.  We moved around a couple times and did get lined up ahead of some but they didn’t want to play.  The tide about quit and we ran further west to try another area where the tide was coming in now.  More sharks here several nice blacktips, thought we may of had some tarpon going by but not 100% sure.  No bites though.  We did look around more and found some more bait which we got one good shot on and caught a dozen.  We then ran back near where we started the morning, hoping that with the tidal change those handful of fish would get more responsive.  We stopped short though as we saw some good looking activity in a normal tarpon haunt.  As soon as we slowed down I knew we were in the mother load!  We put a couple baits out and got a shark right away and then Dwight got a nice 40 lb tarpon!  We fought him and Clark hooked a smaller 25 lber right away after that but he spit the hook.  We landed Dwights fish and got some pictures.  Then the sharks started to tear us up.  I could see the big body of fish seemed to be moving so we followed pursuit and my buddy from this morning had joined us as I had to tell him the fish were there as he gave us bait.  We got reset and then after 10 minutes hooked another nice 55 lb tarpon!  Clark caught this one, a great battle and nice jumps.  Clark was definitely thrilled to catch his first tarpon after going a couple trips years ago without even getting a bite, which can happen unfortunately.  After that the fish seemed to have moved further on, we tried to get lined up on them again and did get around a few but no more bites just some sharks.  After that it was about the end of the day, a park ranger stopped us to give us a safety check.  We tried one more spot on the way home for 15 minutes but no love.  Anyways good to see a big group of tarpon showing back up we must’ve caught them right as they were coming in.  They definitely were not settled in but with the wind going back southeasterly and getting nice tomorrow, it could be game on!  Never any guarantees in fishing though, you got to get out there and just try!  2 for 3

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

Got out with James today for a tarpon fishing charter in Islamorada.  We had some leftover bait from my brother as he was going to go last night but didn’t, and we did catch a few fresh ones nearby too.  There was definitely some weather still rolling around and the stiff southwest breeze which had been cruddy for the backcountry fishing I normally do the last couple days.  I gave James the options of fishing local like we did yesterday and just fishing till we ran out of bait for tarpon around the bridges, or running out into the backcountry to do other stuff and possibly getting lucky and finding a tarpon back there.  He wasn’t real sure so he let me choose and being that we had good fishing yesterday for tarpon locally I figured we’d try that again.  Unfortunately today was a different story.  We set up in the same area we were yesterday but no tarpon love.  Did get a few nurse sharks and a big cubera snapper which was cool.  We moved several times, and had a couple other boats down there doing the same thing.  But nobody had a hook up that I saw, funny because it was the same conditions really.  Got near the tide change and I thought for sure they’d turn on but no signs of life from them.  I did see  a few on the sonar so I know they were there just not wanting to play.  We tried another bridge for the last 40 minutes or so, and I even gave it an extra hour since I know we had a full day scheduled originally but at this point it didn’t really make sense to stay out as we were out of bait and running into the backcountry at 10:30 was not going to be a productive option plus nasty storms back there starting to roll in.  Oh well was bound to strike out at some point and case in point about why I hate the ‘around town’ fishing it’s just not consistent any more these days.  Looks like the weather will be getting slightly better the next few days, Thursday it might lay down more and be swinging more southeast then more easterly by Friday.  We should get better fishing out back then hopefully for my last week of fishing here before we head out of town the first week of August.  0 for 0

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