Always nice to get a text back from a customer saying how great of a time they had with one of my Captains! Mike reached out to me a few days ago looking to get on a half day inshore fishing trip. Mike wanted to try to catch a tarpon however knew it was not the greatest time of year. After discussing options with him I told him Capt. Trent would be a good fit. He’s fairly dialed in with the patch reef fishing as he worked on an offshore boat for the last several years doing a lot of that. So conditions being favorable for that (calm) I said give it a go, and if you whack the fish out there then maybe spend the last part of the day trying for tarpon – that way you aren’t putting all your eggs in one basket. He agreed and so that’s just what they did. Patch fishing was excellent Mike caught a bunch of variety including this lunker school master snapper, very large for that species of fish. They gave tarpon a go for the last bit and fished hard, Trent was able to get them plenty of nice big pilchards for bait, but alas no bites. I myself spent part of the day tarpon fishing on my full day trip as well and we didn’t have any luck either. There were some tarpon in the backcountry but it was still a tad on the chilly side in the 70-71 degree range, and they really like it up there closer to 75. But still worth a shot and you don’t know if you don’t try. The big blacktip sharks kept us busy though as well as plenty of mackerel and a few tripletail and snook which rounded out a productive day as well. Anyways if you wanna get out and fish, lemme know. I’ll shoot you straight and if my guys aren’t the ones for the job I want to make sure you are happy.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
