Well the winds were howling and the front came through the last few days. Yesterday we patch fished on the ocean side since it was nasty out. We caught plenty of fish out there and gave it a try for the last hour for tarpon. No bites unfortunately so my april catch streak is over – though this wasn’t really a full on tarpon trip since we did other stuff – but my other guide buddy did have two bites and caught them. The water temperature did not drop too dramatically locally so the fish are still around. Today they were biting well this morning. We patch fished again in the morning and then gave the last couple hours to tarpon fishing the bridges. We had action pretty quickly, jumping a fish off, having another one break us off on the bottom, a 3rd steal a mullet, and finally hooked into a nice 85 lb fish we chased through the bridge and landed. All within 45 minutes. Then I had a mid afternoon trip, not an ideal time to go tarpon fishing but some people are on a schedule. We did have good action though. Hooked a couple fish but unfortunately did not land them. One we broke off on a bridge piling and the other tried to do the same thing but we caught up with him and he went through the bridge but we pulled the hook. We had another half dozen fish flashing and chasing the baits. They were biting strangely today not a single real bust on a bait, rather they were just slurping them down or flashing them very lazily. Hopefully tomorrow is as good I’ve got a full day tarpon trip and an evening tarpon trip!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
