Month: May 2014

We tarpon fished today in the florida keys.  Islamorada tarpon fishing to be exact.  We hit the same areas I’ve been fishing the last few days.  It took a while for the tide to get going and fish to bite, but after an hour or so we started having action.  We caught 3 out of 5 nice tarpon again and a big sting ray.  The end of May has been much more productive the fish seem to be getting happier and out of their ‘lockjaw’ mode.  Glad to finish the month strong!  We will be getting into our summer time tarpon fishing here soon, many more local resident fish though it can be really good if you know when and where to look for these guys!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Today we had good bait in the morning and good fishing.  Caught about 6 dozen mullet I split with my fellow bait catching buddy.  We fished the local channels and fishing was good.  Start of the incoming tide and a bit of cloudiness/overcast.  We had 5 solid bites and caught 3 fish, mostly fishing dead bait but a good bite on live and another ‘cheap shot’ as well.  Fairly big fish 65 – 100 lbs.  We fished for about 3 hours until 10:00 or so then it seemed to be over with.  Glad to have a multi-fish day again after a little slump for the last week and a half.  Yesterday we had a couple bites we only fished for an hour in the morning and I did not have much bait, but we jumped one off on a live bait, and had another on dead bait we chased down but the hook unfortunately seemed to fall out of his mouth.  My angler wasn’t able to reel very fast and we ended up with a lot of slack line to the fish.  But still had fun anyways and we caught several other things in the backcountry after that.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Well I got the bad mojo off finally.  We caught a nice tarpon this afternoon of 85 lbs or so.  Started back around flamingo again in the morning, caught some bait back there.  My net got caught on an underground tree limb though, busted a couple brail lines getting it back, but still in one piece and had some mullet in it!  Anyways we tried for tarpon back there for an hour in the morning, saw a few but no bites but did catch a couple of big rays.  After that we bent the rod a bit with some trout and ladyfish.  Then we ran back towards islamorada and caught the tide change.  We caught a few big jacks, had a couple great barracuda bites, and then finally hooked into a nice tarpon that we landed.  I heard the fish around town were a little more active this morning too, going to look for bait early and probably stick it out around the local areas if I can load up with mullet tomorrow.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Went into the backcountry the last couple days.  We had a mixed bag of action each day.  We did a little tarpon fishing in the mornings back there.  Found a few schools of fish in some of the channels near flamingo.  They weren’t very active but we did get a bite out of them each morning, unfortunately though they both came off the hooks.  Plenty of action with sharks in the other channels though and as I said good mixed bag of action with other species such as trout, snook, snapper, and more.  I heard some tarpon bit around town here in Islamorada this afternoon on the falling tide, may be focusing more on the tarpon again if they are getting a little more active after the lull we’ve had!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

Well got back at it today had a full day and an evening trip.  Fishing was tough as has been the case.  Today we ran into the backcountry and caught some mullet back there first thing.  We tried a few channels for tarpon, nothing in the first channel but got a couple sharks.  The next channel we did see some fish though it was a little after 9 AM and the tide had just about quit.  So by the time it got going good the othe way it was a little past 9:30 and that is often when it gets a bit tougher to get bites back there with those fish sometimes.  Anyways we tried till about 10:15 with no action so we bent the light rods for a while with some trout.  Ran further out west off the mainland and found a few tarpon out there.  We caught a bunch of sharks and a cobia, though couldn’t get the tarpon to bite.  I moved a few times trying to set up on them rolling, but just not interested.  But we had good action with other stuff at least.  Tonight was very slow, lots of jet skis, boats, and the memorial day morons out in force.  Only saw a handful of fish rolling, did not see any boats hook up.  We fished several spots and caught a few nurse sharks and sting rays and a big jack crevelle, but the tarpon would not cooperate.  The wind picked up a nice light breeze out of the east and near sunset it looked very good, but no tarpon activity for us.  Tomorrow I’m going to try to catch bait very early and run right back to where I saw tarpon today hopefully with the little bit of extra tide and earlier start we will be able to get a few bites out of them!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk