Got out today for a full day after having a much needed day off yesterday. The winds kicked up quite a bit, blowing a good 15 mph and probably 20 mph by the time the day ended. Anyways I had Mark and Steve out from Kentucky and they are also fishing with me tomorrow. We left out early and caught a bit of bait in the backcountry. Some mullet have been showing up in the usual summer time spots hopefully they stay there! After a half hour we had enough to fish for the day with. We jumped in some channels and had the start of the falling tide. We soon hooked a nice 90 lb fish Mark landed pretty quickly. Nice to get a bite straight away for sure! After that we had a little shark action and after an hour or so we hooked another tarpon of about the same size. He ran around a little bit more and we chased him down and got some good pictures by the boat. After that it was Steves turn he hooked a nice lemon shark about 100 lbs or so. Then he got his shot at a tarpon not quite as big but a nice fish none the less, a 40 lber. After that we caught a few more blacktip sharks, a lemon, and a couple nurse sharks were mixed in there. Action packed and didn’t have to move much all day. We will be at it again tomorrow hopefully the fish stay put! 3 for 3
May 2016
5/23/16 May Backcountry Tarpon Fishing Report
Today we had good fishing we left out at 7 as I had another boat with me on the trip. We found a handful of tarpon in some channels early though not many. No bites we caught a few sharks though. Near 10:30 we were making our way to the gulf to switch things up and try something else, though we ran into a large school of tarpon on the way! It was slick calm so it was easy to spot them rolling a ways away. Anyways we were right on the slack tide it was just starting in. As soon as it did we both got good action. We ended up landing 3 out of 6 tarpon all in the 30 to 50 lb range. Good fun we were glad to have found them. Anyways I had a day off after this finally after 30+ days and lots of evenings, so enjoying that and back to the grind on Wednesday. Will be tarpon fishing some more. Summer time is here hopefully after this full moon the fish will settle in and it will get consistent as it should. 3 for 6
5/22/16 Islamorada Tarpon Fishing Report late may
Got out early after them today. We tried some of the local channels first and got out at 5 AM in the dark. Though it was plenty bright with the full moon out. Winds were light northwest – can’t beleive it northwest breeze and it is almost June! A mild chill in the air felt good though obviously not a fan of it for the fishing. Anyways we heard a few fish rolling and made a few good drifts though never had a bite, tried another channel out back where the tide was running longer, and didn’t hear much there eventually saw one roll but still no luck. Around 6:30 we ran into the backcountry and caught a few mullet on the way. Tried a channel back there the sharks were very active, saw a couple tarpon roll eventually though no bite from them. We ran to a different channel and saw a ton of tarpon rolling – yay! We got in front of some, put baits out and soon after had a shark bite which I swore was a tarpon as a tarpon jumped right when/where it bit! I don’t know how a shark got it, but it did. Then we hooked a big lemon shark which was cool something different, and while fighting that Rob hooked a nice 40 lb tarpon we landed. After that we had one more possible tarpon bite though we missed it never saw what it was, and then the tarpon just seemed to disappear. We had been seeing them roll everywhere and now nothing. Anyways we eventually left and tried another area where we found a lot of little tarpon though no bites out of them. Then tried around town the last hour of the day with the live baits and we did have several tarpon give us some cheap shots, chasing the baits around, and finally another solid bite though we missed him – it was slack tide so tough to get tight on the fish and set the hook. All in all a fun day was glad to have gotten one again. 1 for 2
