7/8/18 Tarpon Fishing for a full day in July

Got out with Jim and his wife and son, Shannon and Seth, today for a full day charter for tarpon.  We left out early and headed on back.  Caught some bait first thing, again very easy which was nice.  I had a feeling that the bite may be over where I had been fishing lately as it seemed to be thinning out.  So we tried elsewhere near where we had caught bait this morning.  Some tarpon were definitely there, not a ton but some.  Though the sharks ate us alive!  We had a good start of the incoming tide and they were just on our baits every 20 seconds.  We bailed after giving it a good 30 minutes and then tried where I’d been fishing the last several mornings.  I seemed to be right no tarpon bites there we did get several sharks though.  Again after 30 minutes we bailed after not seeing anything.  We then ran further where we had caught some fish the last couple days later in the morning.  But today it seemed to be a graveyard!  It was nice and calm here in the lee of the wind.  But never for sure saw anything roll.  We thought we might of seen one and set up and we did end up getting a tarpon there.  But unfortunately it didn’t stay on our hooks well for pictures.  We did reel him to the boat right at the start for a legal catch, but afterwards he ran off and after fighting him for a few minutes he unbuttoned.  A shame because Seth wanted a tarpon mount and we needed a measurement!  Anyways we bailed from there after fishing one more spot and looking hard and not seeing much.  We ran back towards flamingo as I got the call that my friend had a couple bites there.  We got lucky and found a group of fish but they were mean to us!  The first one we jumped off, then we hooked a 100 lber that I thought for sure would stay on but the line mysteriously snapped!  Just bad luck I asked my crew if they brought bananas on board they said no.  We caught some more sharks and a big sting ray.  Then Jim hooked a nice 40 lb tarpon that we did catch and he let Seth subdue him which was great.  We got our measurements and the boys are thinking it over on doing the fiberglass mount replica.  We had some tripletails floating by us too and we caught a couple including a big 11 lber for dinner which was great!  After that a few more sharks we did see some more tarpon and moved in on them but didn’t get a bite.  Anyways glad to have gotten a couple legal releases, and one to the boat for this family!  Back at it tomorrow.  2 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

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