3/2/17 March Tarpon Fishing in the Everglades

Got out with John and Jan today.  They are fishing with me the next two days as well.  Tarpon wasn’t high on their list of priorities, they just wanted to bend the rod and have fun.  But with the slicked off conditions and since we had some leftover bait from the other day, I figured we ought to at least take a look.  We caught plenty of mackerel early in the morning, then looked for tripletail on the way to the beaches.  Didn’t see much for tripletail, and out at the beach it didn’t look like much going on.  But off in the distance I saw a fish free jump and we ran over there.  We got into a good little pile of ’em, and within 5 minutes we hooked a nice 80 lber for John!  He fought him for about 15 minutes or so and we landed him, then tried to set back up.  Not much other activity though, we caught a few sharks and then the tide quit.  I moved around a bit, and kept seeing a handful of tarpon around.  Eventually the tide got going and we moved around a bit more.  Right when we were about out of bait with 5 minutes or so left, Jan hooked up a nice fish!  Right about the same size as Johns, though I’d have to say a pound or two bigger!  We landed him too and then headed home.  Was great to get them each one, sometimes you get sucked into staying somewhere when you catch a nice fish right away, at least this time it paid off.  The next couple days we have some north wind coming, and then the weekend it’s suppose to be blowing like crazy with a minor front hitting us.  I probably won’t be tarpon fishing and doesn’t sound like it’ll be very good anyways.  But maybe sometime next week.  2 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk