Month: October 2017

Got out with Steve and Mario for a half day of fishing in Islamorda.  We were after some fish for dinner but I told the boys I had heard there were a few baby tarpon around some of our mangrove islands as well as snappers.  Boy did we find ’em!  We landed 3 tarpon and jumped off a couple others, in 3 different spots!  Also got a snook, various snappers, and a lemon shark as well as a nurse shark.  The place was alive!  It was actually harder getting our legal size snapper then it was hooking into tarpon surprisingly!  Well I guess the rumors I heard were true.  Not sure how long it’ll last as we have a cold front hitting tonight, though it won’t get crazy cold.  But it’d be a nice thing to have these fish around for the next few weeks makes life easy on our short half day trips!  3 for 5

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

10/21/17 – Got out on a last minute trip with Greg and Brandy down from Michigan.  They swordfished the day before with my brother and got beat up since the winds had started howling 20 knots.  So we gave backcountry a try today.  There buddies also fished with Capt. John Johansen who I was able to wrangle up late last night to go.  We worked hard and caught some pilchards and mullet on our way out to be ready for anything.  We caught a big jack crevelle on the way over to the everglades out of a mullet mud which was fun, Greg got it on an artificial.  Once in the glades we found some baby tarpon.  Was expecting some snook but no luck with them there but we did get brandy a nice 15 lb tarpon!  We then tried a few other snook spots without much luck, but the last stop we did finally get one… Brandy again!  We then gave the big rods a shot and caught two big lemon sharks, and pulled on a few other ones that cut us off.  Not a ton of fish but at least some quality ones!

10/22/17 – Today I had Phillip and Andre down from Miami who are students living here from Switzerland.  They wanted to try for tarpon and with the weather conditions the best bet has been to stick in the protected mainland areas for them.  I did have some mullet that I caught a few days earlier but we ended up not even using them.  We did get on a good snook bite early, no little tarpon at this spot this time but we caught probably 10 snooks and lost 10 more I’d say.  We then gave the tarpon a try and found a few in one of the canals.  We had one bite we didn’t know what it was, then Phillip had a for sure tarpon bite.   Unfortunately he came unbuttoned.  Andre got a nice little juvenile cubera snapper which was a unique catch as well.  Afer that we headed home we only had a 3/4 day scheduled, but I was happy with the fishing even though we didn’t get a tarpon the snooks made the day for sure. Not booked for the next few days then I have some trips starting again next Thursday through the weekend.  If anyone wants to go, give me a shout!

1 for 1 and 0 for 1

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

Got out with my dad and our friend Ron Modra today for some fun fishing.  We had a load of pilchards and headed out into the backcountry.  The first stop we found some nice smaller tarpon busting and rolling a little bit.  We were trying for snook but they weren’t responding well so we put our baits further back on the surface for some tarpon.  After getting them chummed up a little we caught a double header!  Unfortunately we lost them both boatside on the leaders before we could get them in the net.  The little guys are the hardest to keep on for pictures, i swear!  We then jumped one more fish, and then Ron caught one that we did get into the net for some pictures!  We caught one more nice size snook, and then checked some other areas out without much luck.  Did see a ton of finger mullet further up the coast though, but not much activity as far as things busting and feeding on them.  We did hit one more good spot where we found some nice snook and got a redfish too for a SLAM on the way home.  Fun day!  3 for 4

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

Got out with Steve and Colin who were visiting from across the pond with their buddies who also fished with Capt. John Johansen.  We stuck together and mixed it up a bit.  Caught some pilchards early on and had some leftover mullet from the other day.  We found a good snook bite early on and also jumped a small tarpon while doing that.  We tried a few other spots and caught a handful more snook, saw some more tarpon but no response out of them on our light tackle.  After that we went and looked for tarpon offshore.  Didn’t see a whole lot but I found some with my electronics, or what I thought was tarpon anyways.  We set up and saw a few roll after about 10 minutes so I knew they were around.  We jumped a fish and then had a shark bite us off.  We made a move after that and had another one that ate a bait and swam back to us, unfortunately he got caught around the motor as we weren’t able to get around the boat quick enough!  Bad luck!  Capt. John had hooked and landed a tarpon at this point so we got some pictures of them.  We then made one more move and were rewarded Colin got a nice 50 lb tarpon!  After that it was Steve’s turn and he got a small 12 lb tarpon, actually I was impressed it was one of the smallest tarpon I’ve seen caught on my larger tackle setups.  After that we got a lemon shark and then the tide quit, shutting everything down for the most part.  It was then time to go so we did.  Great day for the boys, I had a feeling with it getting slick calm like it was that the fish would be chewing.  I have a half day tomorrow and then I’m available through the end of the week, and it looks like the conditions should remain pretty good through Friday.  Give me a shout if you want to catch some fish, tarpon should still be a possibility for a few more weeks as long as it remains fairly warm!  2 for 5

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

Got out with Bob and Bobby for the day today.  Tarpon was on the list of fish but they didn’t want to devote the day solely to that if it wasn’t happening.  We caught some pilchards on the way out and a few mullet in the backcountry so we had ammo for everything.  Found some snook first thing where we had got them yesterday, good little bite we caught about half a dozen and a nice redfish.  Bobby also hooked a nice 20 lb tarpon we fought for a minute but unfortunately we threw the hook.  After that we moved around a bit, tried to get the tarpon going on our pilchards as we saw some rolling but no luck.  We got one more snook after moving a few times.  After that we tried some other spots with our light tackle, not much luck.  Tried for tarpon off shore a bit, didn’t see any free jumpers or signs of life, we marked a couple things on sonar that really seemed like tarpon.  But no bites for us there we gave it a good 40 minutes.  After that we found some more little tarpon in a creek, bobby hooked another one but he got us wrapped around some structure and went through the leader.  After that we made a run and tried another area.  Saw a handful of larger tarpon crashing baits, but not like you expect to see this time of year…  We lost one snook out there, and didn’t get any tarpon action though we had a couple sharks we pulled on.  Tried several spots, nothing much happening…  We ran back towards home and tried one more creek where there were some tarpon yesterday in the morning.  We saw a few but they didn’t want to play, but the guys each got one more snook a piece.  We then tried a channel on the way home for the last 30 minutes, got a nice big blacktip shark, and that was about all she wrote.  Glad we decided to mix it up a bit I think it would’ve been a long day trying for tarpon only.  Different year this year I’m sure the storm has something to do with that, but not seeing the crazy tarpon action we had last october, but it could still come.  That’s the thing about the fall run it’s not a consistent thing year to year.  0 for 2

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