Got out with Pat and some of his buddies today after some tarpon. We had some leftover bait and decided to leave later so we could catch some pilchards as I’d been having some better luck with small tarpon and getting a few snook and redfish as well with those. The pilchards were easy we got a well full in 1 throw! We ran out back and found a good group of tarpon jumping, and set up on them. Tide was near the end of the fall, and we definitely had some fish behind us. However they did not respond, we moved around a few times, and had them roll over our baits and bust nearby, but no strikes! The tide quit and we waited for it to start in. I moved around again, and finally after a good hour and 20 minutes or so, we got a bite and Pat had a nice 75 lb tarpon! We caught him and got a few pictures and then kept at it. Unfortunately I was through most of my bait at this point trying to get a response out of the fish. But we got in front of some more after another move and then we jumped another tarpon off. Soon after though we had redemption and caught another one about a 50 lber! Then we were pretty much out of bait. I told the boys we could go fish with our pilchards for other stuff, or try to catch some more mullet to tarpon fish with. They wanted the big tarpon so we went after some mullet. We were able to locate a few and even though it was near noon, we made a few throws and caught another 15 baits or so. We ran into a few other guides and I gave some piclhards away to give us some good karma! We ran back to where we were and got into some big blacktips right away. We moved further out in the area, and saw a tarpon on the sonar and then saw one roll soon after we had set up. Eventually we got another tarpon and landed our last one of the day making 3 fish, one for each of the crew. One of our last baits out Pat jumped another big tarpon after that, about a 100 lber. And that was all she wrote. But pretty good fishing overall especially considering it was blowing 20-25 mph! I’m back at it tomorrow, have to catch some bait early as I don’t have any leftovers, so hopefully we can get some. 3 for 5
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
