3/2/15 March Florida Keys Tarpon Fishing Report

Good news tarpon fishing in the florida keys sounded good all around today.  I talked to several guides who fished different areas, and there were fish reported in many of them.  We fished locally where I’d been having success as of late.  This morning bait fishing was a little tough but we manged a few mullet before leaving the dock with my charter.  Action this morning was all on live bait we set up and soon after had a tarpon ‘cheap shotting’ our mullets – playing with them, smacking them, etc…  We ended up getting 4 or so solid bites, however were not able to really stick any of them.  Large mullet and not super large tarpon, which sometimes the baits are so big it is tough for them to find the hook.  Anyways the action was worth it and we had plenty of ‘cheap shots’ too for close to 2 hours.  Mid day we looked for more bait but it was very tough, some big muds and did see some mullet showering, though there were not happy flipping where they would be catchable.  Anyways we went and caught some snapper for dinner, and set back up in the afternoon to try to hook another tarpon.  We had a few baits left and after 20 minutes we were into a big slob of a tarpon.  We fought him for an hour and probably close to 150 lb fish.  Great way to end the day!  1 for 5.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk