Got out with Brandi and her parents Sidney and Carol. Brandi was down from NY and her parents live in South Carolina, taking a break due to the recent hurricane up there. They had wanted to fish a few days ago but I was booked, but were able to make it work out today. Sidney wanted to catch a tarpon and I told them I was their guy! We headed out early and went after some bait. I went yesterday just to try and stock up on some bait as I’m booked all this week now, but it was tough we didn’t get much and by the time I found good bait, it was too late and they weren’t very catchable. But we went to the right spot early today and we got them fairly good which is nice so I have a bit of bait for the next few days too if they are hard again. We found some tarpon in closer then where I had been going, thanks to a good report from a fellow captain. They were flopping and jumping around pretty good and some larger fish too, 30 to 60 lbers, not like the 20-30 lbs I’d been getting lately. We hooked a double header to start and landed both fish, but the bigger one took a while as he was foul hooked so we didn’t get a picture with both as I didn’t want to take a chance of the smaller one dying while we fought the bigger one. After that we got another nice one for Brandi about a 60 lber! After that we moved around a bit, I could see tarpon jumping about as far as I could see so a lot of fish spread out but wow what a school. The next move we started to miss a few fish, we jumped off two big ones right in a row and had a third one grab a bait and make a huge boil and drop it, and then Carol got to land hers about a 50 lber. We called it a morning after that. Just great fishing and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. It was a full moon which I sometimes don’t like but that did not bother the fish at all. Back at it tomorrow as I said I think we will have another week of epic September tarpon fishing. 4 for 7.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
