6/18/17 Mid June Half Day Tarpon Fishing Charter Islamorada

Got out with return customer Joe and his buddy Tim this morning for a tarpon charter.  We had bait from the other day and only fished a half day so we stayed local.  We found some fish early on with the last trickle of incoming tide before sunrise.  We got a bite within 10 minutes, and Joe caught a nice 75 lb fish!  After that I was hoping we’d get one more shot before the tide quit, but alas it was not to be.  We ran out to the oceanside to catch the start of the falling tide, it was pretty windy out of the south but not too crazy.  We didn’t see any fish rolling, but did see a couple jumpers so there was a handful around.  But we didn’t get any bites after a couple more moves.  We went down to the bigger bridges to try, saw a handful of fish rolling around the bridge.  We saw one boat catch one and moved down nearer to that area after fishing a little bit.  We caught a sting ray and never had another tarpon bite unfortunately.  Anyways glad to have gotten one.  I normally recommend doing 3/4 or full days to get into the backcountry this time of year, though with the wind blowing and rainstorms around today (and since we already had bait) sometimes staying local makes more sense.  Though often the bite is early so better make those count like we did today!  1 for 1

Capt. Rick Stanczyk