Got out with my regulars Jim and Gwen today. We mixed it up a bit and did end up trying some tarpon fishing today. Yesterday it was flat calm so the water temperatures did rise nicely. I had heard reports some tarpon had shown up in their usual haunts. I had a banner day with Jim and Gwen a couple days ago with lots of big snook and drum, so figured we’d give the tarpon a go as Jim always love to catch them. We caught some mackerels in the gulf to start our day and that was OK, good action fishing we probably caught a dozen or so. When we hit the tarpon area, we caught the middle of the falling tide and didn’t see much to start with. The water temperatures were still in the high 60s when I got to the area. I did mark a few tarpon however, and we just set up and gave it a go. We had a couple sharks early on, and then I saw a tarpon roll so had some visual confirmation they were there! Soon after we hooked a nice 85 lb tarpon that Jim caught, and it was all smiles and high fives after that! As the tide continued to fall, the water temperatures continued to climb. By the time we left they got all the way up to 74 or so, and it wasn’t a super sunny day. But I guess the shallow water on the flats was warming up the deeper water as it came off. We did see more tarpon later on, and did have one more bite before it was time to go but he didn’t stay on the hook for us. Plenty of more sharks too including a very large blacktip/spinner shark. Anyways I gotta say I didn’t really expect much when we got there but it ended up being not too bad. 1 for 2
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
