Got out with Fraser and his son Jamie over from Scotland today for a full day tarpon fishing trip. We devoted most of the day to tarpon. We caught bait early on the last of the falling tide. Easy bait again which has been nice! We found a load of tarpon nearby so we didn’t have to venture to far. An area where they were a few weeks ago but hadn’t been lately. They didn’t bite real well early we had to put some time in and move around. But eventually we got a few to respond and ended up catching three on the last of the falling tide, plus a few small sharks and bluefish. When the tide quit we moved around to the other end of the channel and there were a lot more tarpon there. Big ones here as well as medium. We set up and got bit right away, catching another one for Jamie and then Fraser had one on that we lost after a few minutes. We moved again and then got a double header! Landed both fish but didn’t cooperate for the picture. We then caught a few more, including another double header! Jamie got a big bull shark and plenty of smaller sharks as well. We finished the day with nine tarpon total, tying my best day of the year! We were going to give it a little more time but after the last double header they seemed to have disappeared! I also wanted to hang on to a little bit of bait for my charter in a couple days. We did look for permit for the last 30 minutes on a gulf spot but no luck, though did get a nice pompano! Off tomorrow then back at it thursday. Looks like tomorrow will be epic conditions again, I tried to move my Thursday trip to tomorrow but unfortunately they can’t do it. Thursday may be fine but looks like we have a little south wind coming. Light breeze but I know a couple weeks ago the south wind absolutely shut down our good fishing for a day, and gave me my only bust 0 tarpon day in recent memory! Hopefully that will not be the case and luckily these people have another day on Friday which looks back to normally northeasterly wind very light. 9 for 12
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
