6/26/17 Fishing for Tarpon in June Islamorada

Got out with Amber and Scott again for the last day.  We headed back to where we had found lots of tarpon the last several trips hoping it’d be game on again.  We caught plenty of bait and headed there to get set up.  First bait out we hooked a nice little tarpon Scott brought to the boat, but after we got him on leader he took off and got tangled under the boat and came off, but a technical catch none the less.  After that though it was crickets!  Not much happened, we moved a couple times and nothing but sharks.  I wasn’t seeing the fish showing on the surface at all either, so it seemed that they had gone!  We saw one way down from where we were, and even went down in that area to try but still nothing.  Just when it seemed to be getting consistent things had to go and change… funny because conditions were more or less the same.  Anyways we did end up catching a nice big 20 lb redfish which was a nice surprise, along with plenty of sharks.  After that we headed back towards the bay and stopped along the way at a spot I hadn’t fished in a while.  Haven’t caught any tarpon yet this year, but summer time it can get good.  We marked a fish on the bottom machine right away, so we set up.  Scott hooked a shark, and then Amber hooked a nice 60 lb tarpon!  They got tangled up but luckily we got the shark cut off, and amber caught the tarpon.  After that we had seen a few explosions on the surface way outside of us, we tried moving around a little bit, but after we landed the fish the activity seemed to die down and we didn’t have another tarpon bite.  Tried one channel for a bit on the way home where we thought we had seen a fish bust as well, but no luck.  Anyways it’s always a great day when you catch two tarpon but after you get a dozen bites the day before it definitely feels slower to only get two bites.  I’m off  Tuesday and then fishing the next couple days before going out of town until the 4th on Friday.  Weather looks to be nice and flat calm the next few days so we’ll be going after them!  2 for 2

Capt. Rick Stanczyk