7/16/15 Florida Keys Tarpon Fishing in July

Had Jen and Phil from a couple days ago again today.  I had a little bit of bait leftover from our previous session as I had the day off yesterday.  We ran right to the channels where there had been some fish early and we got on them again this morning.  Jen hooked a big tarpon of 75 lbs that we didn’t think was a tarpon at first.  It made a slow run out and then just a big circle around the boat.  I thought it was a lemon shark or ray or something, so we locked the drag down and slowly got him near the boat.  After about 15 minutes he finally jumped off the bow and it was a nice tarpon!  We fought him from the dead boat and Jen landed him, very strange fighting fish.  While that was going on we jumped another one on the other rod that was in the holder.  Than later on Phil caught a nice 40 lber we got to the boat and jumped off boatside.  We also got a few other little sharks.  Later on we caught some bait, it wasn’t easy but we found a little mud on the flat with dolphins chasing the bait everywhere but were able to get 15 or so.  We tried off the beach and we got a few hammerheads and landed another smaller tarpon plus a few other sharks.  After the tide quit things slowed down we didn’t catch much the last hour just a couple small blacktips and a nurse shark.  But another great morning with multiple tarpon!  3 for 4

Capt. Rick Stanczyk