Got out with James today for a tarpon fishing charter in Islamorada. We had some leftover bait from my brother as he was going to go last night but didn’t, and we did catch a few fresh ones nearby too. There was definitely some weather still rolling around and the stiff southwest breeze which had been cruddy for the backcountry fishing I normally do the last couple days. I gave James the options of fishing local like we did yesterday and just fishing till we ran out of bait for tarpon around the bridges, or running out into the backcountry to do other stuff and possibly getting lucky and finding a tarpon back there. He wasn’t real sure so he let me choose and being that we had good fishing yesterday for tarpon locally I figured we’d try that again. Unfortunately today was a different story. We set up in the same area we were yesterday but no tarpon love. Did get a few nurse sharks and a big cubera snapper which was cool. We moved several times, and had a couple other boats down there doing the same thing. But nobody had a hook up that I saw, funny because it was the same conditions really. Got near the tide change and I thought for sure they’d turn on but no signs of life from them. I did see a few on the sonar so I know they were there just not wanting to play. We tried another bridge for the last 40 minutes or so, and I even gave it an extra hour since I know we had a full day scheduled originally but at this point it didn’t really make sense to stay out as we were out of bait and running into the backcountry at 10:30 was not going to be a productive option plus nasty storms back there starting to roll in. Oh well was bound to strike out at some point and case in point about why I hate the ‘around town’ fishing it’s just not consistent any more these days. Looks like the weather will be getting slightly better the next few days, Thursday it might lay down more and be swinging more southeast then more easterly by Friday. We should get better fishing out back then hopefully for my last week of fishing here before we head out of town the first week of August. 0 for 0
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
