Got out for Day 2 with Ron and Charlie today. We opted to do the early morning deep run again. The forecast was a little nastier, but it was a pleasant ride back and we didn’t get any weather while we were back there thankfully. Not quite as many tarpon as yesterday but we did find an area with some there. Mostly smaller guys. We did not get a bite at our first stop, we did have some fish rolling around our baits. I did get a little nervous as it’s usually been easy to get bit right away. Anyways after some time we moved around, and gave it a bit longer. We finally did jump a fish that just didn’t stay on the hooks. After that we moved again and then Ron caught one so that was good. We moved again after that and then the tide changed for us. Then we had a good little rally where we had 4 bites in about a 40 minute window. Charlie had one on for a few minutes that jumped and threw the hook. We likely could’ve chased him down for a ‘technical’ release but it wasn’t a big guy so I was hoping we’d get another one while we waited. Luckily we did get a few more bites and he landed one and we missed a couple more on the hookup. After that then they seemed to kind of disappear. We reloaded on our bait fish and tried a bit more before we headed out. We hooked a monster bull shark that was about 300 lbs, we got a decent glimpse of him before he broke off. So anyways great fishing again and funny how it changes. We started off sweating it a little bit, but ended up getting more bites then I’ve had in the last three weeks or so. I think we will be back there again tomorrow unless we have a weather issue, most other reports locally and in the backcountry haven’t been great. 2 for 6
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
P.S. We normally do not pick tarpon up out of the water, however smaller fish like these that are under 40 inches you are allowed to remove for a picture. We always try to make sure that we don’t drop them, wipe off any slime or drag them on the deck, and revive them somewhat so they kick off healthily.
