Day 1 with the Stepan Polymers group today. Winds were howling 20-25 mph out of the east. We caught some bait early on and my crew today was after a mixed bag. We tarpon fished early on and things were slow. Found an absolute ton of fish around one of the bridges but they were not responding to us much. We saw one fish caught out of the 10 or so boats down there. We made multiple moves and tried several tactics, had a few fish come up and chase the baits but that was about it. We did get a big jack crevelle and a large mangrove snapper. We gave it about an hour and a half, and then the boys wanted to mix things up some. Took a while to get out back because of the wind we had to run a much longer route to avoid getting in the waves. We caught a few ladyfish and then some sharks in the channels out back. Tried for tarpon again for the last 45 minutes in the local channels around town, didn’t get a bite there and didn’t really see any fish. Anyways tough day hopefully things will get a little better as we get away from the full moon. But looks like the winds will still be howling through until the weekend at least. I might make a long run tomorrow depending what my crew wants to try and do, and again being this group trip they aren’t early risers and they do like to mix things up so like today sometimes we don’t give the tarpon fishing a full measure. 0 for 0
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
