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Welcome to my website!

Had a few cancellations July 7, 8, and 9 if anybody is looking to go fishing short notice, give me a shout!

Subscribe to my YouTube channel, I’m working on this a lot these days.

***The Keys are reopened after being locked down due to Corona Virus.  June is all booked up for me – I’m booked through the first half of July, but I do have some dates the last half of July, and plenty in August and September.  If I’m not available I can definitely make some recommendations on guides to fish with.  Come on down, the weather is nice and fishing has been great!***

Hello and thanks for dropping by my Islamorada Fishing Charter website!  My name is Capt. Rick Stanczyk and I’m a fishing guide in Islamorada, Florida Keys.  I fish out of the world famous Bud n’ Mary’s Fishing Marina located at MM 79.8 in Islamorada.  You can find out more about me here, though for a quick synopsis… I was born in 1982, grew up fishing here, and have lived in the Florida Keys for almost my entire life.  I mostly fish in the backcountry which consists of Florida Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and Everglades National Park… though I do also on occasion fish out on the ocean side in the shallow parts of the Atlantic Ocean.  You can find out more details about my fishing charters here.  I run a 25′ Contender Bay Boat capable of taking up to 4 persons out on 4, 6, or 8 hour trips.  These days however I am mostly just fishing 8 hour full days, though will take shorter trips in off season when I’m not as busy.  I’ve done this for a living, full time since 2008, though being raised here I’ve been fishing in the Keys much longer than that. My specialty is tarpon fishing, however certain times of the year we aren’t catching those very often so I focus on other types of fishing.  On this website you will find my daily updated fishing reports during ‘off’ tarpon season, which is usually November – February.  I will still try to update on a regular basis during tarpon season, and day reports when we are fishing for other things, though you can also check out my other website Islamorada Tarpon Fishing for daily updated reports during that time.  If you are interested in booking a fishing trip please contact me!  If I am unavailable, or you need multiple boats for your group party,  I work with plenty of other well qualified captains that do both inshore and offshore fishing here in the local area.

Thanks,

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
305-747-6903

Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

IMPORTANT: All anglers starting Jan 10th, 2019 will be required to have an Everglades Visitors Pass when fishing in the park.  You can obtain one via internet/phone at http://www.yourpassnow.com and select Everglades National Park.  Most of my fishing is inside the park, so check with me but more than likely you will need one.  You can also purchase an annual/lifetime pass at store.usgs.gov

For daily updated tarpon fishing reports, look at http://www.islamoradatarpon.com

End of June Backcountry Fishing Report

Latest Islamorada YouTube Backcountry fishing report! Have had to work at the tarpon fishing, hasn’t been easy every day but still catching them… expecting it to pick up as we get more into July. Snook fishing has been a solid backup, with some large summer spawners showing up. Tripletail action fairly solid as well!

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

6/29/20 June Everglades Fishing big snooks firing off with the calm weather!

Got out with my dad and friends Stephen and Russ today for a day of fishing.  Yesterday I tarpon fished all day with Blake and Robert.  It was a tough day we worked very hard to catch bait, not as much as I would’ve liked but enough to have gotten the job done.  But fishing was also tough found some tarpon but just not happy, we did catch some sharks and a few big jacks.  We jumped one tarpon literally last bait out in the last stop of the day.  But just didn’t stay on for us.  But today we were rewarded handsomely.  The winds laid down it had been blowing a fair bit the last couple days before.  Water cleaned up and we had nice incoming tide.  We were after big snooks and we found a good handful.  We caught 4 between 15 and 25 lbs, the largest being one of the biggest I’ve seen back there a true 25ish lbs.  We also caught a couple in the 8 to 10 lb range, normally considered a large snook (for here) but we’ve been spoiled now finding these monsters!  Anyways great to see.  Summer can be a great time for snook fishing and when it’s calm the chance for monster snook is there.  You may have to fish all day to have a shot at a 15 plus lber here but to catch one is well worth it.  My dad has the patience to sit there and there isn’t any pressure on my end, so it’s a little different then sometimes with clients we feel pressure to put people on action especially when we know you might only get 1 or 2 bites all day out of those trophy class fish.  But it’s nice when you catch several in a day!

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

6/26/2020 Late June Fishing Report Youtube Video

Been a little tougher fishing this last week for tarpon.  Really had to work at it a few days, but managed some bites every day and only one day did we not catch one (missed both bites).  But we’ve mixed it up a little bit with snook, tripletail, juvenile goliath grouper, and some other things!  As we settle into July look for the tarpon fishing to improve as weather stabilizes.

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

6/19/2020 YouTube Fishing Report update!

Here is my weekly YouTube fishing report, check it out!  Some video of the monster snooks we caught several days ago, and of course tarpon action plus some other stuff.  Make sure to like the video and subscribe to the channel please!

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

6/16/20 Mid June Massive Snook Crush in the Everglades!

Well summer is officially here and that means it’s time for big everglades snook.  When things warm up this time of year and it gets calm the snook spawn usually is on and we get a lot of fish showing up offshore and large ones at that.  Really have been waiting for this all year as we had an epic year last year in the summer and fall with them.  Today was the day I happened to have a cancellation so my dad wanted to go along with our good friends Dave and his son Jack.  We caught fish almost everywhere we went.  Not big numbers but just 1 or 2 good solid bites off each spot.  Snook in the 10-15 lb range, with a few in the 20 lb range and one that was probably 25 lbs!  I think we got 8 big ones in total ranging from 15 to 25 lbs.  We also had a big black drum get eaten by a shark unfortunately and caught a bunch of smaller snook too when we tried a spot.  Just an epic day and like I said we’ve been waiting for a while for this to get good and today was the day.  We had a nice light northeast breeze and over cast all day so really about as good of conditions as you could ask for and that set them off.  We’re usually happy to catch 1 or 2 nice snook like this in a day but we were lucky today.  But now through October chances of catching good snook are pretty good.

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