Got out with Charlie Ruoff today, return customer from last year of mine. We had a 3/4 day scheduled. The winds were cranking pretty good, didn’t seem like it when we left the dock but as soon as we got out on open water you could feel it. Tried to catch a little fresh bait but not much luck with that, though we had plenty of leftover from the previous day. Charlie wanted to mix it up and catch some light tackle stuff, and then give it a shot for a tarpon. We hit the mackerel grounds first and that was very productive, however it took time getting their and back as it was so windy and rough. We caught 18 or so mackerels. With our allotted time I didn’t think we could get to where I’d been tarpon fishing as of late, as with the high winds we would’ve had to run way out of our way to make the ride comfortable to get there, and it just wouldn’t leave us with feasible fishing time on a shorter 3/4 day. Also last time it blew crazy it wasn’t really great fishing back there anyhow so still a gamble. So we opted to fish locally near home where there had been a few tarpon around though I’ve yet to catch any there (though I’ve only tried one other time). They didn’t want to cooperate for us though, we had a couple mystery bites I think were sharks, one cut us off and one ran for a bit and got wrapped around a buoy or something and broke. We did mark a few tarpon on the sonar so there were some around, but just not wanting to play. Anyways back to full day schedule for the rest of the week. I know one person caught a nice tarpon in the back today on their full day trip so will likely give it a try again back there, I think it’s part of the agenda tomorrow. 0 for 0
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
