7/12/15 Mid July Tarpon Fishing Report in Islamorada

Well had Friday off for some boat maintenance and then I fished yesterday morning but not for tarpon just trout, snapper, etc…  Though last night I went out with a few friends for a couple hours and we tarpon fished.  Luckily during the day yesterday we ran across a big ball of mullet and I was able to put a few away.  Last night we fished close by, sharks were pretty active the first hour and then we hooked a nice 50 lb tarpon Virginia caught.  Good battle on lighter tackle.  We fished another hour but things died down no more bites or activity and came in.  Today I had a full day in the backcountry I had some bait to start with and we tried some channels where I hadn’t fished lately.  Flat calm today we saw plenty of porpoises in there and a few tarpon rolling around.  Tide was slack though once it started to trickle in we had a bite and caught a nice 40 lb fish.  After that the fish seemed to have moved on we only saw one more roll and then they quit.  We caught a few more baits the same ball we had seen the day before.  Tried the beaches and saw more fish out there then I had seen the last week but they did not want to cooperate.  We moved around several times and saw a couple jumpers and a handful rolling around but just sharks, though we did get 4 hammerheads which was cool.  After that I tried another area and we saw tarpon there too, again moved around to get in front of them a few times, but no bites.  We finally tried again close to home and even saw a couple tarpon there roll eventually but still no bite.  Anyways good to see fish around in several different areas, they will start feeding again at some point!  1 for 1 and 1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk