Fishing Reports

Tarpon fishing is in full swing here in Islamorada and the Florida Keys.  We’re having some of the best April fishing we’ve had in years.  All the late cold fronts in March seemed to have held up some of the big masses of tarpon and now we’ve had fairly light, warm weather since the beginning of the month.  Tarpon have shown up in absolute droves in the backcountry waters.  I mean we’re seeing thousands of fish – jumping, splashing, rolling, doing all the things tarpon do!  The action has been just as good as it gets, and we’ve had a couple days landing up to 6 fish!  The weather patterns look to be holding as well and for at least the next week things should stay the same on that front.  The bite may slow down some as these fish have been feeling heavy pressure, but I think it’ll still be good overall.  Many of these fish seem to be on the move too and the local bridgs and channels are starting to load up with fish.  The local bite recently had been a little tougher coming off the full moon.  Many of the fish were feeding heavily on shrimp at night and not biting as well in the day.  But from reports I’ve heard that bites been getting much better the last couple days.  Unfortunately I don’t have much for days left until the end of June, but I can definitely recommend some good islamorada tarpon fishing guides for you in April.  Though don’t sleep on our summer time fishing either – June and July are often two of my best months.  The conditions are usually really good most days and there are still plenty of resident fish to play with, plus a lot less guides on the water which has been driving me a little crazy as of late!  Drop me a line!

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

March is rolling by fast, time sure flies when you are having fun and fishing every day!  It’s been a strange one with all the late cold fronts I’ve been mentioning, in fact we have another one coming in tonight it’s suppose to drop down into the high 50s for a couple nights again.  Hopefully that’ll be the last of that.  Might be a couple slow days of fishing in the backcountry anyways but there may be a handful of viable options.  Usually the tarpon don’t really like it too much though.  Anyways the last few days we had some incredible tarpon fishing.  A lot of fish showed up as it got slick calm after the last front.  We had 9 bites in two days of fishing, didn’t land near as many though we got a couple one day, and one yesterday.  But all you can do as a guide is put your anglers on them!  Anyways it was still fun action and some larger fish too in the 100+ lb range.  Yesterday we also were rewarded with a big cobia of about 40 lbs!  We let him swim away to catch another day so that was very cool.  Today I had a half day the winds kicked up again northwest as the temperatures started to fall with the front coming in.  We stuck to the middle bay as there had been a lot of algae filled water near home unfortunately.  Hopefully the front will push that all out though.  But we had good mixed bag action with snapper, trout, ladyfish, jacks, and even got a couple redfish so that was cool.  I have full days the next couple days not sure what exactly we will be doing but like I said these steep temperature drops this late usually don’t make the fish real happy.  But hopefully by sunday or monday things will be somewhat back to normal.  I’m hoping too that we will have a very strong april/may with the tarpon, as with the colder conditions I think the early season tarpon haven’t been ‘beaten up’ too much.

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

Well we had another cold front come in the islamorada area a few days ago and chilled us down into the mid 50s!  After a very warm february where it was 80 degrees every day this was unexpected, and we have another one on the way early this week.  The last few days were decent fishing today with today being exceptional – however it slicked out and was nice, sunny, and warm though the forecast wasn’t quite that.  The last two days with it being cold we stayed in the everglades.  Water temperatures were in the low 60s both days and I wasn’t sure if much of anything would bite.  Day one though we had a solid pick throughout the day – not red hot but we managed a snook, four or five black drums, ten trout, and capped the day off with a small 10 lb tarpon!  We also lost a good snook and had a couple other tarpon bites we missed.  So not constant action but some quality fish anyhow.  Day two was similar but the winds had swung around southeasterly, though it was calm in the morning and picked up much later.  Overall the day was tougher in the morning we really had to jump around.  I was hoping the little tarpon would be in the same area, though they were not.  We tried three or four snook spots and didn’t get a sniff.  We then tried triple tail fishing in the gulf while it was fairly calm, did see a couple but didn’t get great first casts to them and they were fairly spooky.  So we had not caught a fish by 11:00 or so and was a little panicked!  But we hung in there we made a little longer run and did find a very good trout bite.  We caught probably 20 or so, including several nice fish close to 30 inches – very respectable trout for this area.  We let them all go of course.  Then we did finish the day off with 5 snook, and another small tarpon this one 25 lbs or so!  We didn’t get him to the hand but boatside before he jumped and through the hook.  But anyways a slow start with a good finish I will take it!  This was a Saturday and there was a lot of boats back there and I know many guys were struggling as I talked to several throughout the day so was happy we got what we did.  And today Sunday the final day I had my crew from Friday out again for a half day.  The winds were light south and gorgeous, sunny, and finally warming back up.  Just seemed like a fishy day.  We caught a bunch out on the patch reefs, including hogfish, yellow jacks, porkfish, mutton snappers, and more.  We also got a nice size jack crevelle and capped it off with a 13 lb permit!  Nice fish on a live crab which was excellent!  We also had a barracuda eat a yellow jack that we fought for a bit but of course it was on light line and he got away when he really wanted to.  Anyways a great three days of fishing despite adverse conditons for two of them.  As I said we have another front coming in tomorrow but not getting cold until tomorrow night… then in the high 50s for several nights.  Oh well hopefully by the weekend it will warm back up and get back to normal spring time fishing for big tarpon!

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

Well we had a late cold front hit a few days ago with another one on the way here Thursday night.  It kind of turned off the tarpon bite a little bit though still plenty of fish around.  We managed to get a big one today of about 120 lbs!  Very nice day out but it’s the calm between the storms as I mentioned with another front on the way.  We also got a big snook today a gorgeous one that was close to 20 lbs.  Some tripletails as well.  There were plenty of them floating on the buoys and drifting around in the gulf, so hopefully when things calm down again that should be a good fishery for us.  The other day we found a ton of hogfish on the patch reefs as well as some various small groupers, it was fun rod bending action.  Snapper fishing was also decent around some of the islands though we had to put some time in looking for the keeper size ones.  Some big sharks were caught today as well by my anglers including some nice bulls and lemons.  My guys a few days ago also caught a monster bull shark in the channels close to home which we normally do not see there, but the past week it seems some have moved in there as I’ve heard of multiple catch reports stating that.  Spring time is here even though we are dealing with some fronts, the tarpon fishing should be decent when things begin to warm up again!  The fish are definitely around and I don’t think it’ll get cold enough for long enough to really blow them out, but just may be slow fishing for a day or two as I said.  I’m really busy through May, but if you are wanting to get out let me know I can definitely recommend some guides.  Also summer time is a great time to fish here as well so don’t sleep on that June, July, and even August!

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

Well I’ve been more or less in full on tarpon mode with it being so warm so early down here.  Haven’t been updating this blog as much but my daily reports during tarpon season are on my other website islamoradatarpon.com.  The fishing has been a little up and down the last couple weeks.  We had a lot of wind earlier in the week, and out of the southerly direction a few days, which did make fishing a bit tough.  The tarpon bite was hit or miss and a lot of fish got moved around.  We were inundated with nasty muddy water in some of the backcountry areas that had been holding fish consistently.  Even the sharks were a little hard to come by some days.  We did find a few local tarpon a couple days though.  I also mixed it up and did some mackerel fishing in the gulf which was still pretty good considering how warm it’s been.  There had also been some trout and snappers in the bay which made for some good tablefare.  Today though we were rewarded for making a long run.  It was a gamble… a 50 mile run back into the ‘glades.  We found the mother load of tarpon though and some nice clean water after running through miles and miles of mud and nastiness.  The tarpon were hungry too… My anglers Irv landed three huge tarpon, up to 150 lbs.  Though the biggest fish may of been closer to 175 I am often conservative in my estimates!  It was a day to remember and we also caught a few tripletail on the way home before things got too rough.  Anyways looks like we will be having a cold front come in over the weekend so things may cool off for a few days.  It might slow the tarpon down again, but I think overall its a good thing as its been so incredibly warm.  If you are looking to get out fishing give me a shout I have a few days in March still available, and then the summer time tarpon bite can be very good as well and doesn’t book up quite as fast as april/may which is already heavily booked.  Tight lines!

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