4/17/16 + 4/18/16 Tarpon Fishing in Islamorada

4/17/16 – I had the day off and fished this evening.  In the morning I went out and caught some bait that was pretty good but had to work to find them.  The wind was howling today it started blowing 25-30 mph out of the east after being nice and calm the day before.  On the evening we stayed local and tried the channels we saw fish just about everywhere but tough to get them to respond.  We didn’t have any bites first stop, caught a big nurse shark.  Second stop we did have a fish up and he flashed on the bait and grabbed the mullet and scaled it, but never got the hook.  After that a cuda ate us off on the bottom rod.  We moved again and had a couple tarpon almost free jump in the boat, but no bites out of them.  Caught a few more sharks and by 7:45 my anglers were ready to call it a night and grab dinner.  I offered to even stay later I really don’t like striking out, but it happens and unfortunately this year it’s been happening a little more often than I like but fishing has been a little tougher this April.  0 for 1

4/18/16 – I had Steve, Nick, and Craig from the UK.  Steve fished with me last year.  We got on a nice big tarpon early for Craig he landed about a 120 lb fish in the first couple hours!  After that we made our way around the bridges and the tarpon were biting pretty good.  About 10 boats there and I think just about all of them caught at least one fish.  We hooked another one right when we got there and Steve landed a nice 70 lb fish.  After that Nick had a couple bites but we missed them and a few more cheap shots.  When the tide quit we tried another bridge and then the local channels around islamorada, however we never had any more tarpon action.  It seemed to really die down I talked to several people and sounded like the morning bite was it I saw one other fish caught in the channel in the afternoons.  Anyways happy to get two especially this year!  2 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

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