Got out for a 3/4 day with John, Michelle, and Phil. Tarpon was on the agenda though they also wanted to do a little ‘action fishing’ too. We did the mackerels early to start and had good luck with that. We found some tarpon where they had been previously. Today it was very flat calm though and looked to be a good slug of fish around. We had the last of the falling tide though it was very weak and died early on us. We sat for close to an hour and had a shark bite, then finally had something pick up our bait and swim it up under the boat. I had Phil real on it and a nice tarpon came up jumping off our bow! We had to quickly get the line out from under the boat and around the trolling motor, but managed to do it without losing the fish! We chased him around a little bit and landed him! Nice 85 lb fish though we didn’t get good boat side pics as he broke on the leader while Phil had him wrapped on the gloves. We set back up and now the tide was coming in and moving pretty good. We continued to see fish around us but they just weren’t super active feeding. We had another shark bite us off and then we made a move. We hooked another big lemon shark and while fighting that, Michelle hooked a smaller 50 lb tarpon! We fought both for a bit and got the wind-on leader on the tarpon to the rod tip, but he jumped and threw the hook before we could really get him boat side. Oh well a technical catch anyways. We got the shark to the boat though. After that it was about time to head on home, but a great day with variety and a couple tarpon! I think I’ll be back at it tomorrow looks like we will have good weather for a few days, hopefully they’ll start perking up even more for us! 2 for 2
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
