Capt. Rick Stanczyk's Fishing Islamorada

Well we’re in the midst of summer and getting to the real dog days here where its starting to get hot!  Honestly though it’s not all that bad on the water most days as long as you have a little bit of a breeze.  Also we like to leave the dock plenty early to get our fishing in before the heat gets to you.  So we have had a much better summer of tarpon fishing compared to the earlier spring time of March/April.  May and June got much better and July has overall been really good too.  The last couple of weeks there have been a fair number of tarpon out in the backcountry.  I’ve had several banner days with double digit bites so about as good as you could ask for.  Though I also did have one day where the tarpon were there they just weren’t biting in the window we were fishing.  That day it was a bit windier and we had falling tide and just tried all we could to get them to react but not much.  Finally at the end of that trip I gave it an extra 30 minutes once the tide started in and we did definitely jump one fish and possibly had another bite but neither of them stayed connected for us.  Unfortunately that’s how fishing goes and I always tell people I do what I can which this time of year means leaving the dock early, either already having or spending time catching fresh bait, running far and timing the tides as best we can where we fish.  But overall it’s not a bad time to come and hopefully August and September will continue producing for us.  There have been some big snook in the mix too we were catching some back in June randomly while tarpon fishing several days.  I’ve actually tried targeting them in the last couple of weeks with my dad and we had luck on both days catching 3 each day and that is of course of those size L and XL fish.  I actually caught one myself that may have been the biggest I’ve ever landed and I think was close to 30 lbs.  If you want to get out in the next couple of months shoot me an email I definitely will have some time in August available as well as in September.  September we are offering discounts too and barring any hurricanes that is often a great time of year to fish.

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

Well summer time is here and I’ve been starting to mix it up a little more with the backcountry fishing.  We had kind of a tougher tarpon season overall and so the last few weeks I’ve been going in the backcountry and picking a few tarpon but we’ve had some decent snook fishing.  Bait’s been fair with some spots holding some nice pilchards which are always a good addition to have to our usual shrimp we bring.  The creeks and mangroves have held some good numbers of snook at times with a few small redfish and goliath groupers mixed in.  I had some very good tarpon fishing in the deep backcountry in early May for a few weeks.  That had since dried up but we did find another school of tarpon in some of the closer backcountry areas we had some luck with this past week.  June should yield some good opportunities for both tarpon and snook and likely some redfish, tripletail, goliaths, and other things mixed in.  We even had some large jumbo snook make an appearance a couple weeks ago.  It was pretty interesting we were running back along the shore and saw a big bust which I thought was tarpon.  We stopped to look around and marked some fish on the sidescan which I was sure were tarpon.  Sure enough we put our big baits out and we caught a couple of 18-20 lb snook!  I think there were some tarpon mixed in but I think a lot of those must’ve been snook because the next day we fished the same area and the same thing happened we caught 1 big snook!  So pretty cool to stumble into that randomly.  I hadn’t been finding a whole lot of big snook in any of my other usual haunts but hopefully they’ll show up in June or July that usually becomes something thats a possibility during the summer.  Anyways we have availability in June and I’ll be booking myself personally in July a little more short notice because we have some tentative trips planned.  But Capt. Steve and Capt. Trent will be available for sure.  Shoot me a message if you want to ask any questions or get something booked!

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

Well we’re well into January and we’re getting some of our coldest weather of the year! Of course it’s that way all over the country. But we’ve had several good fronts with temperatures dipping into the 50s here in the keys. Fishing has been fair I will say, we were definitely spoiled with some incredible cold-weather fishing several years ago when lots of big snook, big drum, and big redfish were around, and insane numbers of more normal sized fish. However the last few years those cold weather winter days have been a bit more work. Today we got out and it was the coldest I think I’ve seen all year with water temps in the 57 degree range in the backcountry creeks. I knew patience would win the day so we sat and waited some bites out. I was marking good schools of drum around us and after 45 minutes or so we caught a nice 15-18 lb fish! Then another 30 minutes later we caught another smaller one, and a while later a couple other larger ones. Again it took time and that’s to be expected when water temps get that cold. Sometimes you can end up running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to make it happen, but if you’ve been doing this a while you know sometimes you just have to sit and wait. We ended up catching a few snook including a nice 12-13 lber later on. Along with a few decent size redfish. Tried for some big lunkers later on and we did mark a few schools of large fish offshore but they weren’t cooperating today. Yesterday I did that with my dad and our friend Nick, and Nick caught a big redfish close to 30 lbs which made the day! I’ve not run into any of those 30+ lb black drum this winter but maybe they’ll show up somewhere before it warms up. We also had some tarpon action last week on 2 different days. The water was pretty cold in the mid 60s but both days it got fairly calm and sunny, and those fish were doing the spring time thing flopping all around. And we managed a couple bites both days which for mid 60 degree water is all you could ask for. As we get into February look for tarpon to show up more frequently as long as we dont continue to get harsh cold fronts. Typically that’s not been the case in recent years but you never know. Otherwise we’ll keep plugging away on the drum and snook. We’re also now taking bookings on-line through Vally which you can book right here on the website so check it out!

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

Book Now on Vally!

Well we’re getting closer to the years end and Christmas.  Its surprisingly gotten pretty busy for me lately before Christmas week which is a nice surprise as it’s been slow overall with business and the phone ringing.  But I’ve had a few regulars calling wanting to go and a few fill in trips as well.  We got out the last couple of days despite some hard 20-25mph winds and fishing was still pretty good.  The first day we hid in the creeks and caught snook, redfish, drum, sheepshead, and more on shrimp.  Good solid bite we had to move around but each time it yielded another 6-8 fish so it was active.  Nothing huge in there and it was warm but those fish should get a little better size when it cools off more.  Bugs werent terrible they got us in the first spot but after that they subsided.  We then went offshore and found a huge redfish and a couple good size black drum to put the cherry on top of the day!  Then yesterday I had my dad and our friend David Limroth out and we just focused on the big fish.  It was productive we found them in several areas though they weren’t biting super great.  We had to put some time in and try some different tactics but we managed a couple good black drum and a nice snook in one area.  Then we found some of those big redfish offshore and they weren’t very happy no bites in the first spot and we had them all around the boat according to the sonar.  Then the next spot we had a bite finally that we missed and then I ended up catching a nice 25 lb one plus we got another smaller black drum.  So all in all not bad to get a few of those big quality fish in a day is always good.  Looks like we have another cold front this weekend and hopefully we’ll get more in January.  January is one of my favorite times of year to fish for those large backcountry fish catching it after the cold fronts you get some opportunities you don’t get very often.  Of course when its blowing 30 or has just gotten incredibly cold it can be a bit of a bust, but if you catch it the next day when things just start to warm up or at the least try and time being back there later when things warm up slightly it can be some of the best fishing you ever see.  I’ve got days available so give me a shout and Capt. Trent and Capt. Stephen are of course available too!

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

Well finally getting back to fishing some it’s been a little slow the last couple of months.  Of course we had some late season hurricanes a month ago nothing that affected us majorly here but the west coast got hammered and it seemed to keep people away.  We did have some high sustained winds which would of made fishing difficult around those times though.  Now late November we are starting to get some real cold fronts we had one last week and then now this week its dropped back into the 60s here.  Personally as you may know I love fishing around the cold fronts you get some opportunities you dont get any other time and while its not always great and can take patience, we’ve been doing it long enough to give the best shot at making it happen.  Black drum, redfish, sheepshead all make themselves a little more known when the water temps dip into the 60s.  I got out yesterday with Mark and we fished the cape and got into a pretty good snook bite early on.  Not red hot but we caught them fairly early and as it warmed up it got better and better.  Nothing spectacular size wise but we probably caught a dozen or 15 or so and a nice redfish.  After an hour or two of that we tried some of the spots for the ‘big boys’ and were rewarded handsomely.  We found some good size reds out there and a handful of black drum too in the 8 to 15 lb range.  A few stops without a sniff and then the last place we stopped we got into some big donkey reds!  The first two we pulled the hooks on and broke off – heartbreakers!  They were pulling heavy drag and just not stopped.  Then we gave it an extra few minutes and we wound up catching a nice 15 lb red and then another that was probably 25 lbs!  Capt. Stephen also had some good fishing on the patch reefs this past weekend getting into some nice groupers out there as well as mangrove snapper and some big look downs at the bridge.  But on our day I was so glad we made it happen you always want to get at least one of those big ones when you have a shot at them.  Mark had an awesome time and will be back again soon.  I’m fishing again the next two days and then business is starting to tick up for sure we’ve got a few trips a week here through Christmas.

I’ll be fishing myself some personally the week after Christmas so if you want to get on the calender give me a shout, the 26th through the 31st is open.

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