Month: February 2014

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

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

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

We had lots of action with big stuff – sharks and ‘mud marlin’ in the backcountry this morning.  No tarpon back there.  But this afternoon we hooked a nice 120+ lb fish near home again.  Had him on for 10 minutes or so but we jumped him off.  Had a pack of big jacks bite at the same time and caused a bit of chaos.  Anyways tarpon action, you don’t catch ’em all!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Gave it a shot for the silver kings today again.  Caught mullet early this morning, a nice big mud in the bay.  We had to take our time and drift patiently but eventually got a good throw and lots of baits.  We tried a couple backcountry channels, did not see any tarpon rolling we did catch several sharks though.  Yesterday we had fished back there as well and same thing mostly sharks and a few other large creatures.  The water temperatures are a few degrees cooler there though so I think many of the fish are either shut down or have been a little flushed out of that area.  Anyways we hit some of the local islamorada channels in the afternoon.  Put a few dead baits out and within 30 minutes we hooked into a big 120 lb tarpon.  Fought it for about 45 minutes and finally landed it.  Angler Bill Levor, long time Bud n Marys customer, landed his largest fish ever a 120 lb tarpon!  Unfortunately I didn’t get any boat side pics though he did.  If we continue having this warm weather the tarpon should get back into swing into the backcountry and are already around town here locally, plus there are other big things to pull on back there too.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk