Backcountry Fishing Reports

Well I’ve gotten almost into full on tarpon mode as it’s been warm and calm the last few days and the fish have really shown up and been biting pretty good!  Today I had Matt and his wife Emily and we landed 4 tarpon, and jumped off a few others.  The day before I had Rich Riolo, long time bud n marys customer, with his friend Kevin and son Blitz.  They landed 2 tarpon, and jumped off another 4.  The day before that I had Scott and we found plenty of tarpon, but on this day the wind was howling and the fish just didn’t seem happy.  But we still made a good day of it catching a few sharks, a bunch of redfish, a handful of snook and trout, and a nice 35 lb goliath grouper on light tackle.  We’ve also been catching tripletail just about every day out there in between tarpon fishing.  Not a lot of big ones, but fun fishing for them anyways.  As we get into March, I’ll likely be more and more into tarpon fishing and I won’t be updating this blog as much.  So follow my other website islamoradatarpon.com for those daily updated fishing reports.  I’ll still post on here on occasion, or if we do some days where we aren’t targeting tarpon.  But it’s definitely the silver king’s time of year now.

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

Got out with Scott and his family today for a full day.  We ran back into the everglades with hopes of tarpon, but a backup plan of redfish, snook, etc…  South breeze which we don’t like too much, it’s a bad wind for fishing our backcountry in many areas.  Good thing we had the backup plan, there were not many tarpon about but we did manage to get a bite out of one.  He did not stay on the hook for us though.  We ended up catching quite a few redfish though probably close to three dozen or so, and maybe a half dozen small snook and a good dozen or so sea trout.  We hooked a couple big sharks too but they broke us off unfortunately.  Winds are suppose to swing back northeast tomorrow, and it’ll be windy but then Wednesday it starts to get calm, and Thursday through Sunday looks very calm I think it’ll be great fishing those days.  Anyways you gotta fish your conditions and that is what we did today, and we made a good day of it.  Back at it tomorrow.

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

Great day with Trent and Shannon down from NY. They got stuck in bad weather we were suppose to fish yesterday, but luckily I had today scheduled off for maintenance and I was able to get Caribee Boat Sales and Marina to do my service/warranty work Thursday afternoon. They do a great job looking after the guides with Yamahas. So we went today and it was a little better weather wise anyhow. Winds were slightly less though still a little breezy. We found a bunch of bait early on which we got a few throws on and loaded the wells. Tarpon was on Trents list, and I told him we’d been catching a few but we’ve had to put a little time in as they weren’t pulling us out of the boat quite yet with the chillier water. But things have warmed up each day, and today I think the water was close to 80 degrees back there. Anyways we didn’t see a lot of tarpon at first, but I did think we were in a few of them. We set up and within 10 minutes had a big shark on, and then about 5 minutes later, Trent had a nice tarpon on! We landed her, about a 60 lber. Got a few good jump shots and had the fish to hand on the leader, but she shook loose before we could set up for a boatside picture. After that, we decided getting one right off the bat was good so we went after some other stuff which I felt was a good move. We had to work at it, but as the tide dropped low the fishing got better and better. We got into quite a few redfish, and about a half dozen or so snook. Also Trent caught another small tarpon, and we had a couple other bites out of them. Great fishing! Once the tide came up, we ran out towards the gulf as the wind had laid down a little more. We found a few tripletails and caught several of them. We found a pack of tarpon offshore while doing that. We set up and caught a shark, and then made a move and soon Trent was hooked up to his 3rd tarpon of the day – a big 130 lber! We fought her and same thing got the fish to hand, but she made one big run and got under the boat with the big swells and popped off the leader before we could get pics. Oh well, again we got some good jump shots. Anyhow, fantastic fishing we seemed to just do everything right today and made it look easy, which it definitely wasn’t an easy conditions today. But you never know unless you go!

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

Another great day with Irv and his friend Bill. Winds were cranking 25 southeast, not great for fishing usually but we made it happen. Had a little rain to dodge as well but not too bad. We caught our limit of snapper early and then went back in the creeks to hide. Wasn’t a bad ride over really. We caught the bottom of the tide and picked a few redfish and couple snook to start. Seemed like it was gonna turn on but then seemed to go quiet. We waited for the tide but that didn‘t help either. We ran around and tried another spot. Caught a couple good snook there, and missed a couple others. Tide was racing in and got kinda high quickly .we bounced around again, blanking in the next stop. But then we found the right place at the right time! Bill got several small tarpon and missed a couple more. Irv got one too and missed one. We also caught a good handful of snook and redfish as well. The small tarpon flurried at first then they slowed down but it was cool! We then caught a few nice trout and small black drums. Last stop we picked a couple more redfish. All in all not a bad day at all considering our conditions. And both guys got a backcountry SLAM and then some!

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

Fun day with Jay, Larry, Rex, and Trip. We had some left over bait from yesterday and tried tarpon fishing first. Found a good number of fish, jumping and splashing putting on a show. Not biting real well though. We had a couple shark bites, and after 3 or 4 moves we finally jumped a tarpon. Soon after that though we got another shot. Larry got a technical release on this guy, getting him to the boat on the leader but unfortunately he threw the hook before we could lay him out for a picture. After that Jay hooked up to a big sawfish, but we weren’t able to get a look at it as it just sucked on to the bottom. We then tried to run and catch some mackerels. But mackerel fishing was tough for us, never really got them going we just caught 1 and a big trout. We had to tack into the wind to get back to where we were due to the waves, so it was a little bit of a ride back to the tarpon grounds. We tried again for a little, and hooked some big sharks but no more tarpon action. We finished up the day catching a bunch of redfish for Rex and Trip. All in all not a bad day. Back at it tomorrow looks like it’ll be another windy one.

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