Well today it got slick calm and that let the water temperatures rise fast. These types of days are when the tarpon show up in droves after it’s been cold, especially this time of year. I had Myron and Keith down from Minnesota, they wanted to get Myron his first tarpon. I told the boys it looked like good conditions and that we might want to fish a 3/4 day as opposed to the half day we had scheduled, which would give us some extra time to run into the backcountry where I like to fish often. They were good with it and so we made the run back there. We ran deep into the glades and found some fish way back there in one of the areas a fly fishermen buddy of mine had said he saw them late the afternoon before. They were there first thing and we set up. We hooked a shark and then hooked a tarpon soon after… a great sign! The tarpon didn’t stay on unfortunately, but a little bit later we got another one that did. Keith caught it. After that Myron jumped another one, just wasn’t having good luck keeping them on the hook. Later on Keith hooked another but let Myron have it, so he got to catch his first tarpon and both the guys landed one – great! We had a few more sharks and then the tide quit on us. We hooked a big ray that we chased around for a while. By the time we were done with that the tide had switched. We had two baits left and we set back up where I saw some more fish showing. We got another bite after a few minutes and Myron had another shot at a tarpon. Unfortunately though that one came off too, nothing he did terribly wrong just part of fishing! But anyways they both got to catch one and it was solid action some of the best I’ve had this year. Tomorrow could likely be the same but I have the day off. I think tuesday and wednesday should be decent for tarpon, the winds will crank up and start swinging around though as we have another front coming in Wednesday night. But it should be warm enough until then so it’s worth a shot. Hopefully this will be the last cold front of the year but who knows it’s been a crazy March with 4 or 5 good fronts now! 2 for 5
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
