Just got back from vacation last night and back to work this morning. Had a nice visit to Kentucky for the eclipse and to see some family. I had Tommy and Bill over from Texas for a 3/4 day. Conditions looked good today very light winds, they called for rain which we had a little of later on in the day but didn’t mess up our fishing. We caught bait on the way out no problem and got to fishing the channels with the very start of the falling tide. We didn’t see a whole lot early on, fished where I had seen one roll and we had a few big blacktip sharks, moved around a bit after we saw a bust a little later, and more sharks. Saw a few roll in a channel nearby and we made our way over there. Once we got settled in, some more fish started to pop up. They weren’t super happy but eventually we got a bite though unfortunately he threw the hook after a few jumps. We shook it off and got back to it, after a little longer we hooked another tarpon. Smaller guy about 30 lbs, I got off the anchor right away and we got him to the boat quickly on the leader for a technical catch, but unfortunately we didn’t get the rod tip high enough to clear the poling platform and he got wrapped up around that and broke off. Sometimes those tarpon are sneaky! After that we moved around again and had a couple more shark bites. We made one last move where I saw a tarpon roll off in the distance a few times, and had one more nice tarpon there. This one stayed on and we chased him down a nice 50 lber. We got him up on the wind on leader next to the boat and looked like he was slowing down and would cooperate for a picture, but this time the hook just pulled. Have had some bad luck with pulling hooks the last few trips. Anyways another technical release but I’m sure the guys would’ve loved some pictures, unfortunately sometimes the fish have other idea. We had a good time and the action was pretty steady between the tarpon and sharks so we’ll take it. Back at it again tomorrow but I’m open Friday and Sunday if anyone is looking to go, good tides the next several days for catching bait which can be the hardest part of the trip this time of year, so if you want to go give me a shout! 2 for 3
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk
Here is a little video clip from last week’s tarpon fishing with Mike McKenstry.
