6/12/17 Tarpon Fishing in June in Islamorada

Got out with Scott, Charlie, and Roger over from Texas today for some islamorada tarpon fishing in the everglades national park.  We headed out early and stopped to  catch bait on the way.  With the winds back in the eastern quadrant and not blowing insanely, conditions have vastly improved from last week.  Bait was plentiful and easy to catch, we even saw some large balls of bait in several areas which is great to see… summer time bait is showing up!  We headed straight to where we found tarpon yesterday morning.  Marked a few on the bottom but not rollers.  We couldn’t get a bite though, watched another boat come in about 20 minutes after us, and get two bites back to back and land 1 fish.  Frustrating when that happens!  I moved 3 times trying to get in front of some hungry fish, but just wasn’t happening for us so I bailed out.  Was headed back to the mainland to try, though saw another boat coming back from that way who had part of the same party as me.  He said there wasn’t much out there, so we just turned around and fished out towards the end of the channels we were just in.  We got lucky and a few fish floated by us and soon we hooked one!  After that we proceeded to catch two more, and saw a few rolling around too as storms came in.  We got soaked, but it was well worth it.  We left the fish for the other boat that was with us so they could try to catch some, and finished the day with some large lemon shark, a cobia, and some other sharks.  Some days you just have to keep grinding on the tarpon to make it happen.  It’s tempting after 3, 4, 5 moves to just give up and try for easier fish, but persistence sometimes pays off in a big way.  That’s tarpon fishing.  3 for 3

Capt. Rick Stanczyk