Got out for two half days today morning and evening fishing around islamorada for tarpon. Actually this morning we did a 3/4 day 6 hour trip. We left early and I was glad we did. Fishing was good to start we hooked 3 tarpon and landed 2 in the first hour. After that the tide quit and it was very slow to get going the other way. Also very calm and clear water, so not ideal for our tarpon fishing locally! We moved around a bit and saw plenty of fish but didn’t have much action after that. We ran all the way further south to the bigger bridges and gave it a whirl there. Just a ton of fish but not much doing, we saw a couple boats catch fish out of the dozen or so that were there in about an hour. By 10:30 though we had a bit of activity, we hooked a fish on our flourocarbon leader as i had to scale down due to the clear water. Unfortunately though he went through the leader right away, sometimes that’s the problem with doing that you get the bites but they don’t often stay on there. Some guys leave the drags super light and just race them down to get a ‘catch’ but sometimes thats what you must do. Anyways after that we had a few good cheap shots and blow ups on our live baits but no other takes. 2 for 4
This evening was a little better we didn’t find much at our first stop, a few fish but no action aside from bonnet head sharks. At one of the bridges though we found a pile of tarpon and they were fairly happy. We had 3 solid bites and landed two nice fish on our live baits. Didn’t cooperate for good boat pictures though as we pulled the hooks as soon as we really started to pull on them. We had another 7 or 8 fish blow up our mullets too which was very exciting. By 7:00 though the tides slowed down again and everything seemed to die out. Anyways two good trips landing a couple tarpon on each one, we’ll take it! Looks like we have some wind swinging around with a weak cold front we are getting, but not going to blow very hard nor should the temperatures drop. Have a half day with my guys from this evening tomorrow, hopefully it’ll be good! 2 for 3
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
