May 2016

Got out today again for a full day.  We tarpon fished early and tried a few channels and around some of the bridges.  Chilly with a light north breeze, unusual weather for May.  Anyways the weed was horrendous at the bridges, tough to fish the live baits.  There was also a tournament going on so one of them was covered in boats.  We didn’t have much luck in the morning, so we went and caught our nice mangrove snappers.  Then in the afternoon tried again we saw some rolling fish in one of the channels but no response.  Then finally ended up getting one on a dead bait in another spot after we fished for a while and saw one roll and got in front of him.  Anyways glad to have gotten another one, big 100 lb fish!  1 for 1

We fished a 3/4 day today and a mixed bag was the objective.  We did catch a few fresh live mullets first thing this AM so we decided to give tarpon some time.  Early morning we fished around the bridges but had no luck for the first hour.  We did have a late cold front hit us last night, didn’t get very cold but down in the 70s and suppose to get in the high 60s the next couple nights – which is highly unusual for May!   Winds were 20 mph out of the northwest.  Tough to say what effect it will have on the fishing.  Anyways after that we caught some big jumbo mangrove snappers around the island which was very fun, and then gave the tarpon a try the last hour again.  We got lucky and hooked a big 100 lb fish that battled for a while and we chased out through the channels to the ocean side and finally landed.  While fighting him I noticed several purple swimming crabs flushing out with the tide, a very good sign as we use to have the crabs decades ago every summer and it was a quality food source for tarpon, permit, and other fish.  Then they disappeared for many years until the summer after the ‘freeze’ of 2010 where they showed up for a month and we had really good fishing.  Anyways not sure if it’s from the late cold weather or perhaps some of the water quality issues to our north, but was cool to see them again.  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

5/3/16 – I got out this evening with Craig and his buddy Jonesy last night.  They were after some tarpon and hadn’t had any luck yet, visiting from Bermuda.  I fished later in the evening from 6:30 to 10:00 and we had the incoming tide all night with a light westerly pre-frontal wind.  Fishing was pretty good we had ran down the road near channel 2 and made a big drift though a friend of mine had called saying they were biting in one of the channels. We had done well there the previous night so we raced back up there.  We fished with some live mullets at first though they weren’t super lively and when we were checking our baits after about 20 minutes, we got a bite on the 3rd rod a live crab we had out there.  We caught the fish and then set up to drift again and soon hooked a second tarpon we landed.  After that we had bites on the next two drifts though we missed them both and then things slowed down a bit as the tide slowed.  Anyways was glad to have gotten the guys each a fish.  2 for 4

5/4/16 – We fished all day today I caught plenty of fresh mullet early.  We started in the local channel where we had caught fish the last couple trips and there were some tarpon around.  We had a couple cheap shots, nice fish chasing the baits, but didn’t eat.  After that things slowed down and my customers said they’d love to catch a tarpon but didn’t want to spend all day trying for one fish necessarily, they wanted action.  So I decided to run into the backcountry where we would at least have some shark action and still a shot at a tarpon.  We didn’t get any tarpon bites but plenty of blacktips kept us busy.  We tried a few different areas and then tried near home again for the last hour but just had a couple sting rays that put up a good fight.  I did hear a few fish bit around town later in the morning though it’s tough to stay around for that on a full day trip especially when customers want to make sure they catch something.  Anyways today was prefrontal blowing hard out of the southwest and a front is hitting us no, temperatures are dropping to 70, not that I think the tarpon fishing can get much harder than it is!  0 for 0

Capt. Rick Stanczyk