July 2018

Got out with Peter and Ben for Day 2 today.  Wind was a little more easterly than yesterday, much better than the due south!  Little breezy to start but we had a window where it flattened to nothing for about an hour.  No tarpon the first few stops but we stayed in the same area to keep grinding, I figured the fish were there as they were pretty good yesterday.  Third stop was a charm and Ben got a nice 40 lb tarpon!  We then moved around a little bit and got into a good swarm of them.  The wind laid out as I said and we could see them pop up quite often.  We missed quite a few – a lot of smaller size fish that were just blowing the baits out and not getting hooked.  A couple maybe were angler error pulling back to soon, but most of them were not just bad bites.  Eventually we got another 20 lber for Ben and then missed a few more before finally finishing with another 20 lber.  I think we probably had 10 bites in all including one that we missed, casted back out, and literally ate it as it hit the water but missed again!  Also some sharks mostly blacktips.  We ran out of bait and tried to catch a little more but that was difficult at that point, so we just bent the light rods to finish the day catching a few trout.  But a good finish to July and my best month ever by a long shot!  3 for 10

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

Got out with Peter and his son Ben today for Day 1 of their two day fishing charter with me.  We headed out early and searched for bait.  Winds were kicking slightly out of the south, not my favorite direction, but not howling at least.  Bait was there but much harder to catch today we got one good shot on them and then they got very finicky running from us hard.  We got another shot on a handful after jumping around and then went to fishing.  Found some tarpon right nearby in the same channel near the bait, but no response out of them just some shark bites.  We headed back to where I’d been fishing the last few days to try.  Tide was starting out good and it was choppy so hard to see the tarpon showing.  We did come across a few and set up.  Not much action eventually got a shark and some catfish, did see a handful of tarpon start to roll and thought we’d get one but didn’t happen.  They just didn’t seem very happy maybe from the south wind or bright moon still, who knows.  Anyways after an hour or so and jumping around a couple times we left.  My buddy who was nearby did manage to get one after fishing hard for an hour.  We ran and checked some other channels where I hadn’t fished lately, hoping some new fish may have shown up there.  We got lucky and did come across a small handful that we set up on and soon Ben had a 50 lb tarpon landed!  That was it there though, we moved further down and then cam across a handful more and set up.  We got a bite out of a nice big fish probably a 100 lber who jumped and spit the hook, unfortunately the rod was in the rod holder at the time which sometimes is fine but overall it does cut your hook-up ratio down to about 50% from 80%, so I always suggest for people to hold them.  One less thing you have to worry about in keeping the rod down on the bite if it’s in your hand, cause when it’s in the holder its pointed up!  Anyways we shook it off and caught some big sharks there, nice blacktips and several nice lemons!  We found a few more tarpon after moving from there, but tide was almost dead and we didn’t get a response.  We were limited on bait and was gonna try to catch more real quick but nothing nearby that looked catchable.  Anyways we killed a little time and that allowed the tide to start moving.  We set back up with our few remaining baits and managed to get one more tarpon bite, allowing Peter to land a nice 30 lber!  Great way to finish up and glad we found some more fish.  Think we’ll go right there tomorrow hopefully they stick around, I think they will.  A couple more days and then I’ll be off on vacation but mid August I have plenty of days open so give me a shout, tarpon fishing can still be good!  2 for 3

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

Got out today despite some nasty looking weather!  It didn’t look bad early so we headed back into the backcountry, but as soon as we stopped for bait I could see a big line of thunderstorms building behind us and heading our way.  We got our bait and ran towards flamingo so we could duck in and hide if necessary.  We looked around and weather was definitely coming soon so we ran in and ducked into the flamingo store.  Had to sit there for an hour as nasty weather rolled by and it was blowing 30 mph.  Finally the wind let up and it was just a drizzle so we headed back out.  Found some tarpon right away where we stopped.  We set up and soon jumped one off!  Good sign and they were definitely still hanging around.  Then we had another weird bite where a tarpon jumped at us but threw the bait right away.  Unfortunate!  Finally we got one more shot thankfully and Keith caught his first ever tarpon a nice 40 lber.  After that we tried for a few more minutes but the thunderstorms started cracking lightning and more weather was coming.  So we headed back and just called it a half day.  But glad to get one and had a couple other shots.  The tarpon were much happier today as we only had 3 bites all day yesterday, but today had 3 bites in about 30 minutes.  You never know unless you go!  Hopefully the weather gets a little better tomorrow but looks like it may be similar.  1 for 3

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