5/25/15 Tarpon Fishing in the Florida Keys on Memorial Day

Well the boat traffic wasn’t quite as bad as the last two days thankfully today.  But the wind was howling a gale.  We left out early and I had bait leftover from the last couple days.  We set up nearby and had the last trickle of incoming tide, I was hoping it would of been falling already but not the case.  Difficult to fish with weak current going into the wind.  Though we did jump a fish right away he did not stay buttoned, and another 20 minutes later we got the hooks in a big 150 lb tarpon.  He fought hard going all over the bay and around markers and through the bridge eventually.  Not many jumps he was slow and methodical, saving his energy.  He went in between bridge pilings which got very interested.  He did it twice and I had my anglers jump up onto the spacer between the pilings and ran the boat on the other side to pick him up and we were able to keep the fish on.  We got leader on him though he was no where near ready to just lay over.  Eventually we went back around the bridge pilings and got the line caught in some barnacles which we weren’t able to get out of so we never got a good picture of him.  But a technical leader release.  What a fish we will remember that one for a long time!  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk