3/13/11 Florida Keys Tarpon action plus another big sea monster!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk had Lars, Oscar, and Antoine fishing in islamorada today.  All three are swedes who love to fish!  We caught plenty of trout, ladyfish, and jacks to bend the rod early.  Water temps were still pretty chilly in the mid 60s.  Though they wanted to catch some big stuff so we put the shark rods out.  Within 20 minutes we saw a big bust behind the boat and the BG90 bent over and started zinging line - big 130 lb tarpon!  We fought him for about 30 minutes and Lars landed his first tarpon and it was a lunker!  We fished a while longer though the tide started dying so we moved out further on the edge of the gulf.  Not much action there, one shark bite we missed, so I asked the guys what they wanted to do - bend the rod on smaller stuff or go for the big stuff.  They chose the big stuff, so we ran back to a channel where the water temp had warmed up some in the afternoon sun and put 'em out again.   Same rod bent over again and started slowly taking drag.  I could tell by the action it was something else - we fought it for about 20 minutes again and I started hand-lining it up having the feeling that it was another 'mud marlin' and sure enough it was, about 300 lbs!  We got a good look at him and then he went back to the bottom, and cut us off, but at least we saw him!  Well the guys were happy with their decision, we soon headed back after that.  Not bad for a chilly day in early March!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
305-747-6903
rick@seethefloridakeys.net

3/12/11 Cold weather? No problem for these florida keys fish!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished today with his girlfriends brother John Baxter and company down from Tennessee.  They had a late start so instead of running all the way to the cape they fished half way back in the everglades.  Caught plenty of trout, ladyfish, jacks, and snappers, then went and put the big rods out.  Caught a nice lemon shark about 100 lbs or so, and not much else while there.  So they ran out a little further to another gulf spot and put 'em out again, and within a few minutes had this nice hammerhead shark on!  The water was pretty stirred up out there and no mackerels bit, so they ran back on the edge of some banks and caught some nice mangrove snappers and this nice red grouper as well!  Great action for a fairly chilly day in the middle of March!  Soon there will be great florida tarpon fishing again so be ready!

3/10/11 Cold front coming means... great fishing!

Capt. Jim Willcox and Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished a 3/4 day this morning due to the cold front coming today.  The sky turned black and winds were extremely nasty by 12:30 or so.  We had our british group from the UK down and a couple of the guys fancied catching a bonefish, and with the front coming in that was ideal conditions to try some stake up fishing.  Capt. Jim put them on 3 bones this morning, here's a picture of a nice 7 lber!  Part of Capt. Rick's crew wanted to catch a tarpon in a bad way so we ran back into the everglades for that.  Fishing was very good early, caught 1 out of 3 tarpon bites we had, possibly 4, plus a few blacktip sharks and a big nurse shark!  We also caught plenty of trout, ladyfish, jacks while doing so and a few pompano too!

3/7/11 Silver Kings plus a silver trout!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished Jim & Gwen Johnson today on 3/7/11 for a great day fishing in Islamorada!  They fished with Rick last winter when it was very cold so thought they'd give it a try in the spring when it was warmer!!!  They ran 18 or so miles into the everglades national park and fished some channels back there, catching plenty of trout, ladyfish, jacks, and of course catfish!  Good action pretty much non-stop!  They stayed in the same area and put the big rods out for some bigger stuff.  They caught plenty of sharks for the rest of the afternoon, mostly black tips and a couple lunker nurse sharks!  They also caught 2 out of 3 tarpon which was a delight and Jim's dream to catch!  Gwen got to catch one as well so that made it even better!  One fish was close to 100 lbs and the other was 65-75 lbs!  While fishing for these we caught plenty more ladyfish and also this unusual silver trout with no spots!  Great action and fun while florida tarpon fishing!!!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
305-747-6903
rick@seethefloridakeys.net

3/6/11 Shark fishing in florida! Plus a strange surprise!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk and Capt. Jim Willcox had a group of british regulars, Bill Chisolm and party, out for some backcountry fishing today.  This was the 1st of 5 days fishing and staying at Bud n' Mary's!  We left out and headed to the backcountry early this morning for some islamorada fishing.  We stopped in some channels and caught plenty of trout, ladyfish, jacks, and pompano.  Capt. Rick caught a blacktip and this big lemon shark in there as well, plus had another shark bite through the leader.  We saw a handful of tarpon rolling around in there but no bites out of them.  Later on both Capt. Jim & Rick fished together trying to catch the boys a tarpon but no luck, though we did each hook big lunker 'mud marlin' at the same time!  Bills was so big he thrased under the boat and broke the rod on us and slashed through the leader, and Jims got off too unfortunately, but they are usually to big to handle on the standard tarpon gear!  Jim also had this big eagle ray actually eat a tarpon bait and they ended up catching it!  We ended up catching a couple other sharks, and some more trout while we were waiting, so a day with some good action!