Well I had the day off from tarpon fishing yesterday. My anglers wanted to go in the back and pull on big stuff, mud marlin and sharks. We did just that and were tight on a half dozen mudsters and another half dozen big lemons all day long. I was itching to be tarpon fishing though I heard it was going off around town that day and this morning too, but I had this morning off to take care of an oil change and routine maintenance. You also need to take a morning off here and there it’s nice not to be up at 5 AM! But we got back on it tonight and fishing was good. I had Bill from NJ out who had fished here before and was looking to land a nice tarpon. We had to look around a bit at first I tried some areas that were reportedly good this afternoon with the last of the incoming tide but the fish moved out when the tide changed I guess. We found them eventually though and the action was hot when we got there! We caught 3 out of probably 8 solid bites and several other cheap shots which was very exciting, I don’t think we went more than 5 minutes without a fish behind the boat going crazy. All on live mullet. One nice 100+ lber that we leadered but he got away before we could get him up for a boatside pic, but the others were a bit easier to handle. Fun night, looks like a front coming in tomorrow but not going to get real cold but may slow the bite down a little. Maybe it will put off all the weekend warriors!
April 2014
4/16/14 Islamorada bridge tarpon fishing in April
The tarpon bite was good today despite the weather. The front that came in last night did not cool things down any. The wind started out north though came northeast relatively quick. We had good action at the channel 2 bridge tarpon fishing. A few bites on the live baits that we missed, then caught one finally – a nice 35 lb fish that was great for pictures. We ran back and set back up and within 5 minutes had another nice fish up of 85 lbs chasing live mullet. This time my angler got it right and we hooked him and chased him through the bridge. Landed him and after that we went out to bend the small rods for a bit. The afternoon falling tide was good locally we fished the islamorada tarpon channels and we had 2 bites in the last hour, catching our last fish of close to 100 lbs. Making us 3 for 6 for the day, we also caught a big ‘mud marlin’ that was almost 300 lbs. Great day tarpon fishing islamorada in april!
4/15/14 Mid April Afternoon tarpon fishing report
Well had a 3/4 day trip today with regulars Dave and Roseann. We ran into the backcountry to look for some tarpon. It was horrible conditions which were unforeseeable unfortunately. The dreaded ‘red weed’, this nasty mangy type of grass that comes in from time to time was horrendous. It just gets all over your baits and lines and makes it pretty much unfishable as you have to clear your baits every 30 seconds when it is bad as it was. So we abandoned that plan and decided to try to catch some mangrove snappers. That worked out well and then we ran back near islamorada to try to tarpon fish for the last bit. We saw a few rollers in an area that I frequent so we set up. It took a little while but after 45 minutes we hooked a nice 85 lb fish that ran a good bit and put on quite a show. We landed him and got some nice boatside pictures. Caught a couple nurse sharks after that and no other tarpon bites as the tide had slacked and it was time to go in. Looks like a mild front coming in later tonight, not a real temperature drop but west/north winds this afternoon and tomorrow. That won’t help the tarpon fishing but shouldn’t push fish out. Hopefully after it gets nice again we will get some big schools showing up, they have to be close!
