Got after the tarpon again today. We had a light southwesterly breeze that picked up a little in the afternoon but overall not too bad. It is a prefrontal condition though and suppose to get down in the 60s tonight so may turn the tarpon off for a few days at least. We caught plenty of mackerels early and then hit the tarpon areas. Fish were where they had been, we caught sharks and some ‘mud marlin’ sawfish early on, and after a couple moves we hooked a big 150 lb tarpon! He was jumping like crazy coming at us and every which direction, but he stayed on there. We got him to the boat with leader in hand, but he didn’t want to pose for a boatside picture. Luckily we caught another and this one wasn’t quite as big but still probably 120-130 or so. He didn’t fight as hard but still ended up taking us a ways with the current and wind, but we got him next to the boat for some good photo ops. After that we caught a few more sharks and tried for a few snook again to finish the day, but with the wind direction the shoreline area was fairly muddy and didn’t have much luck. Though a great day with 2 big tarpon and some other critters too! 2 for 2
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
2/8/17 February Tarpon fishing in Islamorada
Had a glass calm day today and it looked very tarpony out there! February is usually still pretty early for our tarpon season, but when its hot and calm like this, they can definitely show up. I had heard the last couple days a few were around again though didn’t have clients that were interested in them… Today though it sounded like a good option. We caught a bunch of mackerels much of which we used for bait early on. Then we hit the channels out west of flamingo and found the tarpon there. They weren’t chewing like crazy, but after a little work we soon had a nice 80 lber hooked up. We got him boatside but he threw the hook before we could get good victory pictures as they often do, but still landed none the less. After that we ended up with more sharks, and a few big mud marlin, and finished the day with some nice snook. 1 for 1
1/27/17 January Islamorada Tarpon Fishing Report
Got out with Rod and Mark today and we decided to mix things up a bit. It’d been flat calm the last couple days after it blew very hard sunday/monday, like 45 mph it was crazy! Anyways things had warmed up a bit and I heard yesterday there were some tarpon around that the fly guys were chasing. Anyways we decided to give it a shot we caught plenty of spanish mackerel in the morning and used them for bait. We found some sharks in the channel as well, lemons and blacktips, as well as a couple big ‘mud marlin’ saw fish! We only had 1 tarpon bite, but it counted and we landed a nice 75 lb fish! Anyways nice to have caught the first tarpon of the year in January! Looks like its suppose to get cold the next few nights though so it probably is going to be short lived. But February is right around the corner and that can be the start of tarpon season for us if it is warm like it is today. Of course the weather is unpredictable… 1 for 1
