Got out with Glenn and his son Jack today for a full days fishing. We went after tarpon as that’s been the thing to do as of late. They had fished last night with someone though fishing was tough locally they only had 1 bite on a crab that they did not catch, so I was hoping we’d be able to put it together today. Winds were kicking a little out of the southwest – not a direction I particularly like, though it wasn’t howling so that was good. We caught a little bait on the way out and hit the channels. Lots of boats out today, people were fishing just about everywhere I went. We got on a few tarpon early, Glenn jumped one off, and then later on landed a nice 50 lber plus several sharks for them both. I think we caught the same nurse shark three times! After that we did some light rod action, trout fishing was very good. We looked off the mainland for some tarpon with the tide starting to fall, but didn’t see much. They usually dont like that southwest wind out there as it blows on shore and muds the waters up a bit, the little sharks were there and horrendous though. We went inside the creeks to try a spot for snook, we didn’t have any live bait but gave the artificials a try. No luck with the snook and the bugs were kind of bad, but I marked 3 fish go by on the sonar that I thought were tarpon. We put a big rod out and before we knew it hooked a big 80 lb tarpon! It was a battle in the small creek and I had to use the trolling motor and the big motor to maneuver around. We landed the fish and got him on the leader a few times, but we couldn’t get her to roll over. Unfortunately she got under the boat and around the trolling motor very quickly, and broke off and we broke the rod tip in the process which stunk because they don’t make that particular rod any longer but at least I still have quite a few spares! Anyways after that we headed back towards flamingo to try another spot for the last part of the day. We didn’t see any tarpon where i found them yesterday, but we tried a channel close by. When we pulled in it just looked fishy… nice green, clean water with a good tide and breeze blowing across it. I saw a fish roll soon after we set up and knew we’d get some shots. We ended up getting 3 tarpon, and some big lemon sharks and other sharks, it was a great way to finish the last hour of the day! Glenn and Jack had a day they won’t soon forget. I’m fishing the next couple days I just booked Monday, and then Tuesday I’m putting on hold to pull my boat to do some work. Though I’m available from later in the week and have plenty of dates in August. The tarpon fishing can still be very good this time of year, sometimes better then ‘prime time’ in the spring. Give me a shout and we can put it together! 5 for 6
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
@richardstanczyk
