February 2014

2/24/14 Banner day tarpon fishing in february!

Today I had Sergio & company again for a day of tarpon fishing.  We caught bait this morning and went into the backcountry.  My buddies boat broke down that was taking the other half of his group, so they all piled on my boat.  We had a tarpon on within 5 minutes and saw fish rolling everywhere, very happy!  Next we waited for a little bit, some shark bites, and then we hooked a double header tarpon!  We caught them and continued fishing, catching 3 more nice tarpon.  All fish were 60-90 lbs.  We came home early when the incoming tide quit around 12:30, only a 6 hour trip and 6 nice tarpon.  Of course I’m leaving on vacation now that the fish are happy but I’ll be back in a week to beat up on them some.  March is getting VERY busy but I may have some evenings available if your looking to tarpon fish, let me know!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Islamorada Tarpon Fishing Report

Had a full day and stuck around town tarpon fishing all day.  Fellow captain Ben Ekblom had the other part of our party so we fished nearby each other.  Early in the morning we had to wait a bit for action but after an hour or so we had a big tarpon crash our mullet, unfortunately we didn’t hook him.  Minutes later he was behind Capt. Bens boat and they hooked up and fought him for over an hour.  Not much other action there, we went and caught some more fresh bait mullet and set up in a different channel.  Right away we had 2 tarpon bites we missed, but finally on the 3rd we hooked a nice 60 lb fish that we landed.  Capt. Ben reported similar action down near channel 5 bridge, they missed a couple fish and then hooked and landed one.  After the tide quit and started in we didn’t have much other action with tarpon, though we did get into a good blacktip shark bite for the last 45 minutes before calling it a day.  So we went 1 for 4 with the tarpons, with best action being in the morning with the falling tide – though the previous week or so the afternoon incoming tide had been good.  Funny how things change!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

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2/22/14 More tarpon fishing in the florida keys in february

Had Lyle and his son Hunter today down from the cold north.  I got ‘no showed’ yesterday which was a bummer and I heard the fishing was good especially for tarpon.  But anyways it allowed me time to go load up on bait for my next couple trips.  Today we left out a little early at 6:30 with some fresh mullet.  We set up in the nearby channels and soon had action.  Caught a couple nice tarpon 60 and 85 lbs off the bottom baits.  Also had one other fish we missed that was most likely a tarpon but didn’t get a very good look at him, he made a hard boil/bust on a live mullet but missed him.  Anyways great start to the day, finished up with smaller stuff for action, and several sharks in the backcountry including a nice hammerhead!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk