7/26/17 July Tarpon Fishing in Islamorada

Got out with the Thompson crew today, Andy and his boys Derek and Conrad.  They’ve fished with me for several years and always come in the winter and summer.  I hadn’t been fishing since last week as I was out of town and had a few other days off, so a good 5 day break.   We caught mullet early on it was pretty easy nice to see plenty of bait around, even saw some later in the morning too.  Tarpon weren’t too plentiful but we did find some on our first stop.  We had the last trickle of incoming tide for about an hour.  Didn’t see much for tarpon rolling but saw one on our bottom machine.  Derek hooked up though unfortunately after a little run and one big jump she came unbuttoned, looked like a nice big fish close to 100 lbs.  After that the tide slowed way down, I was almost about to leave but we marked another fish.  I said let’s keep them out anyways.  Andy hooked up on the slack tide, again a bigger fish of 90 to 100 lbs.  We chased him and he put up a good fight, landed him and got some boatside pics.  After that the tide had turned and was falling.  We saw a few tarpon roll and one free jump, I moved over into that area and we marked a couple go by.  I thought for sure we’d have another shot, but nothing much happened we had a couple shark bites and got a big blacktip.  After that everything kind of seemed to dry up.  After that we did light tackle stuff, caught a few mangrove snappers but they were even hard to come by!  Getting to be that time of year where things can get tough on ya.  Anyways we had a half dozen for dinner, plus a few more sharks, so all in all not a bad day.  Back at it tomorrow and tarpon will likely be on the menu.  Tarpon fishing can still be good in August if you are looking to go!  1 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk

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