8/11/14 Mid August Tarpon Fishing East Cape Sable

Got a 3/4 day in today we left early at 6 for our florida keys tarpon fishing in august.  I had mullet from yesterday so we tried to catch some pilchards as we originally had a full day planned.  Bait was not cooperative though only pinfish and snappers came up.  So we ran and tarpon fished off the beaches of east cape sable.  A boat was fishing where I had been sitting lately so I fished another area nearby, we did not have any luck early though I spotted a free jumping fish off in the distance a couple hundred yards.  We had good falling tide though with the super moon.  About 10 minutes later I saw another bust so we reeled our lines up and trolled over there.  We set up and within 15 minutes we had a nice 65 lb tarpon on!  He swam back at the boat with bait in his mouth and jumped off the bow, very exciting he did not know he was hooked.  We chased and caught him and set back up.  Hooked a double header though one spit the bait and we caught the other one, a 30 lb fish.  Then we had about a 40 lber that went crazy jumping and we landed him quickly.  It was about slack tide and little blacktip sharks went crazy.  We tried to fish some muds for trout and not much action, and I talked the guys into calling it a shorter day since we did not have other bait and it was flat calm and very hot, not looking like conditions for a productive afternoon.  When you catch 3 tarpon in the morning this time of year, sometimes it makes sense to just be happy with that and call it a day!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk