Got out with John Page today who has been following me on Facebook for a while. He wanted to catch some tarpon and booked the day a little while back. We headed out early and I told him fishing had been pretty good as of late. Summer time as I always say it’s my favorite time of year! We got on the bait early to start and loaded the wells. Always nice when that part is easy. We checked a few spots for tarpon along the way but didn’t see much. We did have a nice northerly breeze which was cool, but may have been keeping the tarpon from showing as much. Anyways I decided to run where we had done well the last few days. Caught the last trickle of incoming tide to start but we did eventually see a few fish roll. Not much but when the tide started to fall the bite turned on. We ended up getting five tarpon here plus a few sharks and other odds and ends! John did well and listened precisely how I explained to hook and fight the tarpon, and he was rewarded with not missing a single fish all day. I on the other hand did miss a couple of bites lol but mostly out of the rod holder. After that slowed down we ran out originally to try some other stuff. I decided to check a spot though in hopes of catching something cool like a cobia or big snook. Low and behold there were some tarpon out here too! We did get a big snook to start which was very cool. Then we shuffled around and got in front of the tarpon. Pretty much insantly we were on with a nice 75 lb tarpon for John, good size fish. We battled him and then went back to where we were. Eventually the tide turned and we had a few more bites. We ended up getting four more tarpon here and like I said missed a couple others, including a would-be double header! After that though the tarpon seemed to thin out for the last 30 minutes, but overall just phenomenal fishing! It ended up being my best day of the season with 10 tarpon landed! John had a banner day and can’t wait to come back next year. Hopefully the fishing stays like this for a while longer. August is just around the corner and it can still be very good no doubt, I have plenty of days open so if you wanna try your hand at it, give me a shout! 10 for 12
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
