3/8/16 + 3/9/16 March Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

3/8/16 I had Gary and Ron some regular customers the last few years.  We started the morning in the gulf doing the mackerels and that was pretty good.  A lot of action with some jacks and other things mixed in.  Again very rough and had to use the trolling motor to hold me in place as I couldn’t anchor in the deep heavy grass out there without dragging.  After a couple hours of that we ran into the backcountry to try sharks/tarpon.  The channel I found fish in yesterday didn’t produce much, we sat for a while and had a couple sharks zip us after 30-40 minutes, but didn’t hook them.  I decided to run out off the mainland and we caught a couple bull sharks and a big lemon there.  We plowed back towards the channels and it was a rough ride.  We tried again in another channel for the last 45 minutes, but no bite of any kind.  Tough fishing but we worked hard and caught some stuff at least.  They are fishing with me again on the 10th hopefully we can find a few tarpon!  0 for 0

3/9/16 Tim and his nephew fished with me today new customers.  They wanted to try and catch tarpon and after yesterday I didn’t think it was worth devoting the day too, plus it was blowing 30 mph again.  Bait was very tough I didn’t catch any extra yesterday, and this morning we only caught 8 that I had to split with my bait partner.  So we had about 9 baits total.  Anyways we caught the mackerels good with a few bluefish mixed in and then ran back towards Islamorada to try for tarpon for the last couple hours on a shorter 3/4 day.  The first spot we caught a big ray and a jack crevelle though no signs of tarpon.  As the tide quit I decided to run out on the ocean side and give it a try there with the last few baits I had.  A fellow guide had caught a fish out there the day before.  Anyways we set up and put ’em out and soon we hooked a big jack, and right after that a nice 40 lb tarpon!  We landed him and decided to give it a few more minutes since we had time and a couple baits left.  Sure enough we hooked another tarpon a nice 60 lber that put on a good show.  Tim got to jump in the water and get a shot with his fish as we were in a good spot to do that in (we don’t boat tarpon any longer).  The guys got to land their first tarpon and we took the lemons the day gave us and made lemonade!  2 for 2

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