3/19/16 + 3/20/16 Islamorada Tarpon Fishing Report

3/19/16 – Today winds kicked up substantially out of the southwest, not a great condition for our tarpon fishery.  We ran out into the backcountry where the tarpon had been swarming the last few days, and saw a few around when we got there.  We jumped one fish on the last of the falling tide and that was about it for tarpon action for the day for us.  We switched channels when the tide turned, though their were already a couple boats there before us.  It was frustrating because we did see one boat catch several tarpon, though if you weren’t sitting on that exact spot you weren’t getting a bite.  We made a few moves and caught several sharks, then ended up doing some rod bending with ladyfish and a few trout.  Unfortunately the channels out there and bay turned into a complete mudhole making for tough fishing.  0 for 1

3/20/16 – Today tarpon was the main target we caught some bait early and made our way into the backcountry to try the channels back there again.  Winds were still howling out of the southwest with the cold front coming in later this evening.  We ran to where we saw some fish caught the previous day, however no such luck today.  We caught several sharks, and when the tide quit the mullet swarmed in the channels.  We took a little time to stock up on fresh bait then we tried some different channels.  Nothing but sharks though we got a little variety with a couple big nurses among the other blacktips, we did see some tarpon roll in one area and got on top of them and gave it a good 45 minutes, but no response unfortunately.  We ended up running back around town to try live baiting the local channels.  We didn’t see any tarpon there either, but we did catch a big jack crevelle, and some various sharks too.  0 for 0

Looks like tonight and tomorrow will be dropping into the 60s, and even high 50s monday night.  It will likely be too cold to mess with tarpon fishing so I will likely be recommending my anglers to fish for other things.  But time will tell hopefully by next weekend things will get somewhat back to normal, I’m ready for some consistent nice weather and steady tarpon action!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

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