Got out with Paul and Josh down from british columbia for a couple days. Winds were cranking north/northeast both days, the first day was blowing 25 for a while, today it wasn’t quite as bad but picked up in the afternoon but still a solid 15-20 mph. Anyways we ended up giving tarpon a good try both days. The first day they each hooked one in the morning, the fish weren’t biting great but we moved several times and fooled a couple. One fish we got to the boat very quick and he darted off again and pulled the hook, the other we jumped off straight away. Anyways good enough for a technical release but still felt like we left empty handed. We did catch a few sharks though. We finished that day bending the little rods with various critters. We crushed the big black mullets on the way home which was a nice find. The next day we caught pilchards in the morning and also had the mullets from the afternoon before. We tried some snook way in the backcountry, not much luck with them and no tarpon in that area surprisingly. So we ran back down the beach and found some tarpon busting where they were the day before. The guys wanted to try that again so we gave it a good effort. Josh was rewards with a big blacktip shark, and a big 12 lb snook which was a nice surprise. We moved around a bit and then soon after he hooked and landed a big 120lb tarpon! He fought very hard and we got him to the leader multiple times but before we could get him to roll over he cut us off on the boat with one quick kick of the tail, but we got some good jump shots at least. Then it was Pauls turn he got a nice 70 lber after the next move, which we got up for good boatside pictures finally. After that we called it a day as the rain moved in and wind was kicking up. Fun couple days for the boys they will be back soon! 1 for 2 and 2 for 2
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
10/16/16 October Tarpon Fishing in the Everglades
Got out with Andy and his son Aiden today. We had some mullet leftover from a week or so ago, though kept on good ice and not too saturated with water. They did the trick for us we landed 2 out of 4 tarpon in the morning back off cape sable with the falling tide. One nice fish of close to 90 lbs too. When the tide switched we moved and then Andy landed a nice one about the same size! It was great fishing and nice to be able to do it with just a handful of baits. We finished the day with a variety of other fish including snook and redfish. Fall tarpon fishing can stay good for a bit longer as long as it doesnt get too cold. 3 for 5
10/8/16 October Tarpon Fishing in the Everglades
Got out today after a few days off due to the hurricane, Matthew. We were very lucky and had nothing but a little wind and rain from the storm. It did blow for a couple days though and the wind swung from northeast to southwest and dirtied things up and shifted them around. The tarpon were not as thick as they were last week so we had to do a little looking around. We caught some bait early though that also took a bit of time. We eventually found a few tarpon around in one of the channels, as soon as we set up we hooked a slob within 5 minutes! It was almost an hour battle but we landed a nice 100 lb fish. After that the tide had quit so we ran out to check the beach area where they were last week. Though all we caught were sharks out there, eventually did see a couple tarpon jump off in the distance but didn’t seem like a whole lot. After that we decided to bend the light rods and did some trout fishing which was good. Anyways I think it’ll get better again once the wind kicks back east, probably have maybe another month maybe to have a decent shot at catching a tarpon, once November gets rolling and it gets cold it’ll likely be over until the spring unless we have a few random very warm days. 1 for 1
