March 2015

Today we had some rain and weather that sat on us in the morning, plus a lot of wind out of the east.  We avoided it early while bait fishing, and we did see a huge black ball of mullet come into some of the local islamorada channels.  We were able to load up on bait for a few days.  I got to fishing around 8 as we waited a little later due to the time change.  It started pouring on and off for about an hour first thing.  We had one fish pick up a bait and swim with it on the bottom, never knew what it was as it dropped it after a minute of chasing him.  Anyways we set back up and not much action so we moved.  Had some activity right away on live baits in another channel and hooked and landed a nice 60 lb tarpon.  After that we caught some stuff on the light rods including ladyfish, jacks, and snapper.  Came in around noon, great half day trip considering the conditions!  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

More tarpon action today we ran into the everglades this morning.  Tides are weird they seem to be stopping roughly the same time the last few days.  Must still be weird phase we are on.  Anyways we had a northeast breezy wind.  Caught mullets good first thing this AM.  We fished the channels and had some shark action right away.  Caught a big nurse, some big blacktips, and jumped a couple tarpon off – couldn’t get ’em to stick.  We also caught a cobia.  We tried catching some more bait in some muds on the flat, not much luck.  We tried another channel and hooked a big blacktip shark we caught.  Saw a few tarpon roll and a boat near us hooked up one.  I decided to run back towards Islamorada to give it a try.  Came across more bait on the way and were able to get a few more.  We put them out close to home and within 20 minutes we hooked a nice 110 lb tarpon.  Hard fighting fish, some very spectacular jumps.  Great way to end the day!  1 for 3

More tarpon action today in the backcountry.  Winds laid down to 5-10 mph, very nice.  We found fish in the channels we’d been fishing all this last week.  However they did not bite great today surprisingly.  We did hook a nice one right off the bat, about 120 lbs, and landed him.  We set back up and had a bit of shark activity, and finally jumped another fish.  Waited on the tide change hoping the incoming tide would be better, alas it was just more shark bites.  A couple other boats out there and each had a bite or two, but not the ‘red hot’ action we were hoping for.  We tried a couple other spots and ended up getting another tarpon and a few sharks to finish the day.  2 for 3

Capt. Rick Stanczyk