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11/19/23 Capt. Trent on some juvenile tarpons!

Capt. Trent got out for a half day today with a father and young son for anglers.  We recently have a crazy tropical system pop up out of nowhere last Thursday.  Really intense the winds got up to 80 mph clocked at alligator lighthouse and we had torrential rain.  I woke up and it legit sounded like we were in a hurricane at midnight!  This of course did throw a monkey wrench in the fishing for a few days, as when the bay gets all stirred up like that it can make fishing a little tough.  But in the bigger picture and the long run it’s a good thing as we get a lot of fresh water to help with salinity and heat, and the wind stirs up and moves around a lot of the dead sediment in the bottom that can hold toxins and pollution.  Anyways that was 4 days ago but now things had a chance to settle back down.  Trent found some pilchards for live bait and fished some local bay islands.  The juvenile tarpon were happy he said there were quite a few stacked up there.  They hooked several and landed two, and what a great catch for his 6 year old angler!  They also got plenty of mangrove snappers for dinner and ended up extending there trip because they were having a good time!  Great to see the fishing coming back strong after that storm.  We have fairly good weather conditions for the forseeable future, a bit of wind in a few days but then back to the standard 10-15 of the fall.  Larger resident medium size tarpon are definitely still around I know Capt. Steve was out the day after the storm and said that was a little tough but of course the day after you never know what you will find.  But with water temps still hovering in the mid 70 degree range and a few more days for things to settle down, I’m sure they’ll be out and about this coming week.  Capt. Trent has plenty of days open from now through Christmas and is offering a discounted rate too.  If you want to book a trip please drop me a line or call the marina office 305-664-2461 and ask for Capt. Trent!

P.S. We normally do not boat tarpon though juveniles under 40 inches may be removed from the water for a quick picture before release.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina

9/22/2023 Some more tarpon these last couple of september fishing charters!

Got out with a group trip the last two days my good customer Gerald from Las Vegas and his crew of builders had 5 boats booked for two days. They come a couple times of year often in the late spring for big tarpon and then in the offseason around now. Fishing honestly was a little tough yesterday we focused more on snook and fishing with our light rods with pilchards. Falling tides all day long mostly. I had Jack on the boat and we picked away at snook early on. But it was about a fish or maybe not in every ‘good’ spot you hit. No big rallies and lots of moving around and time to invest for a handful of bites. We switched to tarpon a little after that and we jumped two fish back to back! Couldn’t keep ’em buttoned which was frustrating. We caught a tripletail and big redfish after that and a few more snook, but finished the day with a nice juvenile tarpon so all in all not bad just really had to work for it. But the whole group of boats had tough fishing just one of those days nothing seemed to be super happy. Today we focused more in larger tarpon and we found a school first thing. Same school I’ve fished a couple times in the last few weeks it’s not a lot of fish, but they are biting and there aren’t a lot of ‘pickers’ messing with the baits which makes it nice. We jumped a tarpon and then next stop we hooked two back to back. Landed them both and got pictures which was great! After that we caught a handful of snook and a goliath grouper, then saw a few more tarpon free jumping and busting in another area. Again not a huge school of fish but we got lined up and put our baits out and boom we were hooked up in about 2 minutes with a nice 80 lb fish! Awesome fight for Jack and good opportunity for pictures again. So all in all a great day.

I’m hoping next week the big school of tarpon may show back up. Who knows possibly with the incoming tidal scenario things will be much different. But I think we’ll still get a good fall push once the bait runs start it’s almost October and that is the time usually. Have some days open in October so give me a shout if you want to get set up!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina

9/20/2023 Tarpon in September in the Florida Keys

Got out with Cody and Shelby today for a full day trip.  They were recommended from a client Chris who fished with me a couple years ago and caught some nice tarpon.  The wind had swung a little south and we had a lot of weather offshore in the morning but we ventured out back.  Unfortunately the big massive school of tarpon that was around last week seemed to have disappeared.  But I was out with my dad yesterday snook fishing and we did see a smaller group of tarpon that we didn’t mess with so we ended up finding those guys again.  First thing we got into a little group and Shelby hooked a nice 40 lber that we landed great fish and she did a good job fighting it for not much fishing experience!  After that we jumped around and kept trying to line up on fish but they were spread out and definitely not as easy as they were last week.  Finally after 3 or 4 moves, we sat for a good 20 minutes and sure enough got a bite finally!  Big 100 lber goes airborne!  Cody gets this one and this fish really put on a show with at least a half dozen big jumps, almost jumping in the boat at one point and going under the boat and trolling motor, but Cody did an excellent job backing off the drag and getting the rod tip down in the water to clear the boat, while we picked up the trolling motor so he could get around to the other side.  He knew just what to do as I explained it to him but that is the type of move that a big tarpon can pull on your and break you off sometimess real quick!  After that we tried a bit more but things kinda petered out so we tried some snook fishing, which was a little slow but we did manage a handful and a few small goliath groupers.  Though we did finish up the day with an XL snook to put a nice cherry on top and a couple of medium size goliath groupers and jacks.  The weather built up pretty big from flamingo all the way to key largo after that so we headed in.  But a fantastic day for these two enjoying there honeymoon in the Florida Keys!  We are getting the tarpon or snook mounted through Grays Taxidermy, maybe both of them as they are fish he wants to remember!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina