Well haven’t been doing much tarpon fishing this month with the cold weather. January typically isn’t a great month for them, but occasionally we get a few while fishing for snook, drum, etc… in the canals. Or if we have a warm streak of weather. Today definitely wasn’t warm, the water was a chilly 58 degrees. Our snook fishing was very good, and we caught some drums and a red too. But my angler Jeff also got a nice juvenile tarpon! This was a great fish and completed his backcountry SLAM (snook, redfish, tarpon). I’ve been seeing quite a few baby tarpons in the areas we’ve been fishing, but of course it’s been cold overall so they haven’t been very active. But hopefully in a few more weeks we’ll get some warmer weather and then we usually start catching some tarpon semi-consistently in February. It’s definitely not expected to be red hot at that time, but if the water temps get in the mid 70s, you can have a shot at catching one or two if you put your time in. I’ll be ready and waiting that’s for sure! Tarpon season 2018 is almost here. If you are wanting to book days in prime time (april – july) I suggest getting your plans set early. The keys are open for business and mostly back to normal after IRMA, but there are still a few of the larger hotels closed. So it’s best to try and get something set up ahead of time so you can make sure you find a room. Anyways I’ll be back with more tarpon reports soon hopefully! 1 for 1
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
