4/24/17 Florida Keys Tarpon Fishing in April

Got out with Michael and Brian today.  Michael is a writer for the Wichita Eagle, the largest newspaper in the Kansas City area.  He said he’d be doing a little write up about his experience today so I was hoping fishing would be good!  We had a minor front hit us last night, winds swung around to the northwest, not hard but a steady 10-15 mph.  We went a little early and hooked a nice tarpon a little after 7 which Michael fought for about an hour!  We got him boatside several times on the leader, but he just wouldn’t roll over or cooperate for pictures.  Michael didn’t want to over stress him so we ended up popping him off.  After that we went to another area and had plenty of shark action, bonnet heads, nurses, and atlantic sharp nose, and finally had a tarpon eat a live mullet which Brian caught!  This one wasn’t quite as big maybe 60 lbs, and we landed him in 15 minutes and he was more cooperative for pictures thankfully.  After that we went and caught some dinner for the girls who didn’t get to come fishing, some nice mangrove snappers.  We finished up in the channels and caught the start of the falling tide.  Found some tarpon there too we had one eat a live mullet but didn’t get the hooks in him unfortunately, but ended up getting a big nurse shark on the bottom.  All in all a fine day I was glad the fish cooperated a bit.  Looks like some more west wind tomorrow then it should be swinging back to a more normal east and hopefully not blowing as hard as it was the last few weeks!  2 for 3

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

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