3/27/17 Islamorada Tarpon Fishing in March continues

Got out with the Donahue brothers today over from California.  We caught plenty of trout in the morning and saved some for dinner.  Later on we ran back to look for the tarpon off of Flamingo.  We saw a handful though we had to wait a bit for the tide to start coming in.  After 45 minutes and a couple moves, it started to creep in slowly.  We hadn’t had much action, and made another move out to where we saw some fish showing.  After a bit we finally hooked a nice 110 lb fish.  He fought hard and we landed him though no boatside picture as he broke off on the leader.  Set back up and about 30 minutes later we hooked another fish, of about 90 lbs or so.  Same type of fight he stayed down and dirty and made a few crazy leaping jumps.  We got him on the leader and tried to take it a little easier on him, but after several violent thrusts under the boat, the hook pulled out.  They just didn’t want to cooperate for photo ops, but good release none the less.  The last fish we hooked about 15 minutes later, we got him boat side after 10 minutes or so, but he jumped and threw the hook but got the leader into the rod tip for a technical release.  So all in all fairly good fishing though we had to wait on it to get right, the first hour and a half almost had me sweating!  Anyways couple half days the next two days, probably fishing tarpon locally around the bridges and channels.  We’ll see what happens!  3 for 3

Capt. Rick Stanczyk