Got out with James today for a full day of tarpon fishing in Islamorada. He was visiting from the UK. We headed out early and went into the backcountry. The winds were nice and calm, much calmer then they’ve been. We’ve had a little bit of a windy August, not crazy windy but enough that it’s made the fishing a little tougher and churned up many of the backcountry areas with mud and such. In the summer this happens much more easily with the warmer water temperatures so it doesn’t take much wind at all to do that. Anyhow we found some bait early and found some tarpon where they were yesterday. We didn’t have much tide to start but eventually it started coming in. Though we did not get any response out of the tarpon! Eventually they thinned out, we caught a few sharks and moved around a bit. We finally got one tarpon to bite but he threw the hook unfortunately. After that things dried up and we made a move to another area. We found a good load of tarpon here – one of the biggest schools of seen this month with hundreds of tarpon! They weren’t pulling us out of the boat though, we didn’t get much for about 30 minutes then finally jumped another small size fish. Then we moved and after 20 minutes we hooked a bruiser about 120 lbs! James fought him for 45 minutes and we got him boatside for some pictures. After that we went back and the tarpon were still there, we hooked up pretty quick to an 80 lber that we fought for a little bit and landed. After that though the big group of fish was gone. We looked around and saw a handful but they were very spread out. We decided to catch a little more bait and then found a small group of tarpon that were staying in somewhat of an area. We set up and James hooked his last tarpon of the day a nice 45 lber that we landed. All in all a great day, August has been a little tougher than July the fish have definitely been more finicky plus the wind that I’ve mentioned, but it’s still definitely been worth going. Looks like we will have nice conditions into the weekend so I think the fishing could stay pretty good. I have good availability from now on so don’t hesitate to call or email me, if it doesn’t look like it’s worth going I’m usually good with moving things around if possible which is a nice thing about the off season. 3 for 5
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
