Got out with Butch and Cody today for a full day of fishing. Part of a larger group that had several boats out of Bud n Marys. We tarpon fished most of the day and they were game with that – anything beats being at work! We caught some fresh mullet and headed out to the fishing grounds. We tried where we fished the last few days and there were fish there. We had a bite within 20 seconds of putting our first bait out, a big 100 lber for Cody! Good fight and we had her on the leader several times but snapped off before we could get the boat side picture. I thought the tarpon might be chewing a little bit seeing as how quickly we got a bite, but we fished hard for the next hour or two and never had another tarpon bite there. We did get a nice bull shark for Butch though. The tide started to die so we decided to run further back where I hadn’t been in a while though had seen some tarpon a couple weeks ago the last flat clam day we had. We didn’t see much at first, and anchored randomly and caught a big lemon shark and a sting ray. I was about to give up on the area, but decided to take a lap around and look. We saw one little bust that I thought may be a tarpon and decided to fish the area. It was near where we saw the tarpon a couple weeks ago, and I saw something float by with its fins up high. We put a live bait out and sure enough a tarpon grabbed it! We missed him but then caught one on our other rod, a nice 65 lber. We moved around a bit, and then Butch had another bite he missed, and then 30 seconds or so before I was about to say reel ’em up, Butch hooked and landed a 40 lber! Anyways a great day 3 tarpon in February is pretty good fishing! Looks like the winds are going to kick up again so might slow the bite down a little more. But I’ve already caught more fish this February then I have in any other February in the last several years. May be a very early start to our season! 3 for 5
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
