5/22/15 May Tarpon Report from Islamorada

Move tarpon fishing again today.  Followed the same plan as the last few days as it’s been working for me.  We left early and fished locally for a couple hours.  We had 2 bites and caught 2 big fish between 6 AM and 8 AM.  As the tide slowed down fish started rolling everywhere so it was tough for me to leave even though I knew the conditions were getting tougher.  We waited it out for about another hour though the fish just did not respond as we watched about 2 dozen of them rolling literally all around the boat for a good 45 minutes.  We ran into the backcountry and tried some channels back there.  Just a couple shark bites at the first stop and the ‘red weed’ was horrendous, surprised to see it bad this late in the year.  We ran way up inside the channel to try another spot and saw a few fish rolling around back there but no bites.  We did catch a lemon shark and hooked another we broke off, plus had a big ‘mud marlin that we got a glimpse of before we broke him off.  We finished the day back off the beaches and had some shark activity.  About 30 minutes before it was time to go we finally saw a good group of fish starting to roll.  I moved in ahead of them and we had action pretty much instantly.  Jumped a small fish off and then hooked another 35 lber we fought and landed to finish our day.  3 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk