4/16/15 April Tarpon Fishing in the Keys continues

Little slower bite today than the past few days but was still OK.  Had Stewart and John.  We ran into the backcountry and had some fresh caught bait from early this morning.  We caught 1 fish right away on the last of the falling tide.  Waiting for it to come in and had to move around a bit.  Eventually had one other bite we missed and caught a big bull shark plus got bit off by a few black tips.  Later we ran to the bridges and set up and the tide there was just starting to fall.  A good amount of fish close to the bridge, we had a cheap shot fairly soon after getting set up.  Several tarpon came up eye balling the baits but would not eat.  Eventually we hooked one on a dead bait and chased him through the bridge.  We got him up to the bow of the boat but then he jumped and threw the hook, so a technical release as we were to the leader.  After that we ran back near home and fished the channels.  Didn’t see any fish but it’s been good there.  We put baits out and again hooked one on dead bait soon after.  Chased him down to land 3 out of 4 tarpon for the day. I don’t have many unhappy customers, especially on a day landing 3 tarpon, though it does happen once in a while and I always try to do the best I can.  I would like to discuss it for a bit.  Today John had preferred reeling lefty and we had changed two rods over to left handed for him, a live bait and dead bait rod.  Unfortunately none of the bites came on his rod so Stewart got to catch them all.  I even offered to switch the handle on the last fish after we hooked up but he did not want to do that.  Anyways I could tell he was a little discouraged at the end of the day.  Some guys will tell you that you can’t make the fish bite, well occasionally that is true though we did make them bite somewhat today even though it wasn’t red hot.  But you really can’t make them bite on somebody’s certain rod.  There are a few things you can try to encourage that to happen, which we did, but it just did not happen.  Anyways in all truthfulness, you may not be able to cast and jig all day with a rod set up with the opposite hand your use to reeling with, though if a fish is hooked and your fighting him you should be able to fight him with either hand holding the rod and the other reeling.  It may be a little awkward but I know people can do it… I can do it myself and I’ve never had any issue with it really before.  When tarpon fishing your generally not having to cast and retrieve a bunch – your most often sitting and waiting for a fish to take the bait.  When you get into switching handles and rods etc… especially when tarpon fishing, someone may be a little sour at the end of the day because as stated you can’t make them bite on a specific rod.  Anyways just some food for thought.  3 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk