Did a full day tarpon fishing around town here today. The morning was tough we had one bite right off the bat but missed him. Tried a few spots around ch 2, ch 5, and in the bay. We had a few other cheap shots at 5 but no real connection. We did catch some monster mangrove snappers and a nice would-be legal size black grouper, but doesn’t open for a few more days :(. We ran down to long key bridge my buddy said they were biting. We caught one on the last of the incoming tide there on live bait. Then the tide switched we had a few bites on dead bait, lost one in the bridge. When the tide got really rolling we got bit up on the ocean side. Everyone in the area was having bites, we caught 2 more fish and then it was time to come home. So I think 3 for maybe 8 on the day, great tarpon fishing in islamorada in april!
April 2014
4/26/14 Everglades Tarpon Fishing in April
Well the sometimes you get the tarpon, sometimes the tarpon gets you. Today fishing was tough it was northwest breeze in the morning. Not ideal for the backcountry tarpon fishing. Anyways we got there early and caught some nice fresh bait first thing. Was slack tide when we got there but got rolling pretty quickly, incoming tide. The first channel we fished was dead nothing going on. We had caught 1 out of 2 there yesterday afternoon and a few sharks in the last hour, but today it seemed lifeless. So we moved channels and we had a shark and then jumped a tarpon soon after. Another 30 minutes and we jumped another tarpon, caught a big bull shark, and then the weed came. Horrendous mats of red mangy stuff that we get on and off this time of year. Though it was not there yesterday, but today it made it practically unfishable. The wind had laid out by then and the tarpon were rolling, we jumped 1 more fish that we had a bite out of really quick and that was about it. Frustrating when you know it would of been great fishing if you could keep the baits out there for more than a minute without having to reel them in to get weeds and gunk off. Oh well tomorrow we will likely fish around town if we tarpon fish. Today I really wanted to get away from the crowds as its a busy saturday and there were a couple tournaments going on. I heard the fishing around town was slow though so all in all getting 3 bites back there was probably still worth the ride back, but it’s nice when you can catch them!
4/25/14 Backcountry Tarpon Fishing Report
We were not really focused on tarpon today. My anglers wanted fish for dinner. So we did that most of the day. But we did give tarpon a try for the last hour after I talked them into it! We fished some of the backcountry areas since we were back there anyways and I wanted to see if the fish were too. The recent late cold fronts had made the fishing back there inconsistent and tough, though the last couple days were flat calm and warmed right back up so I thought they may move in. I was right we only fished the last hour and right at the change of the tide but we caught 1 out of 2 tarpon and a couple sharks. Nice way to end our day. I’ll be doing a full day tarpon fishing tomorrow and likely heading back there to get away from the crowds in town here.
