3/5/18 – Post cold front the water temperatures chilled down a lot and still fairly windy. We planned on a mixed bag day and I told the guys I didn’t have a ton of faith in the tarpon fishing. We caught our limit of snappers early. Then got some fresh bait to try for some tarpon at the bridge. Saw quite a few fish, but no activity out of them but we did have some wicked barracuda bites! We then hit the patch reefs and caught a bunch of hogfish and small groupers which was fun. We tried close to home for a tarpon but kind of caught the end of the tide… did have a few around us but again no bite. 0 for 0
3/6/18 – Got out with regulars Rich and Luke Cromwell for a day. Today the winds laid out nice with a slight east breeze then kicked up out of the south in the afternoon. Since it was so pretty I decided to run in the backcountry. We found a few tarpon early on in the AM but no love out of them, again on the tide change first thing. We kept going and caught some bait and then went to look for some triple tails. That was productive we caught several of them and wound up off the mainland looking for tarpon. We found a few which was great but they weren’t super active biting. We caught several sharks including some big bulls, blacktips, and spinners. Rich got a monster snook that was about 20 lbs too! Then a little later we made a move and got Luke on a big old 120 lb tarpon! He fought it well for an hour and we got some good pictures. Had plenty of fish around following our hooked fish, but by the time we landed her seemed like things had spread out a good bit. The tide changed too and we had plenty more shark action but no more tarpon bites. Anyways good to see, the next front is coming in Thursday night so it will likely slow the bite down again but overall I think it will be a good thing and help clean up some of the dirty water we’ve been dealing with in the bay. Hopefully by early next week the tarpon bite will pick back up. 1 for 1
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
