First day back after a week away! Always a little nerve wracking starting fresh after you’ve been off and out of your groove, especially when conditions aren’t great with a southwest wind like we had. Fished with return customers Andy and his sons Derek and Conrad, they’ve fished with me for a long time and are always pretty lucky (we had my best day tarpon fishing ever last year, landing an incredible 16). I had heard the tarpon bite had been fair while I was away still though, nothing red hot but a few fish spread out in multiple areas. Luckily bait was easy for us that’s always the first battle and we won it handily. I decided to fish the light gear with the last of the incoming tide just to put some fish on the boat since I wasn’t sure how cooperative the tarpon would be. We got into a great bite of redfish probably catching 3 dozen or so. After the tide quit and the sharks showed up, we went after the silver king. Checked a couple areas and didn’t see a whole lot, but eventually we did see some signs indicating there may be some in the area. Sure enough they started to pop up a little bit, but we still had slack tide. We waited through it and the fish seemed to spread out and leave. We made a move and caught a few sharks, and Derek got a big old 13 lb redfish which was cool. Then Conrad jumped a small tarpon! We set back up and sure enough both boys hooked one and we had a double header on! Caught both fish, little guys that were under 40 inches so we lifted them quickly and carefully for a quick picture before releasing them. After that things slowed down, we fished a couple more areas without much with exception to a few blacktip sharks. Made a big move and then again more sharks, did see a few tarpon jumping and busting but very spread out and didn’t seem to be much of a concentration of them. We made one last move to another area and again saw a few signs of them. Set up and sure enough, dad got a nice 60 lb tarpon to the leader but unfortunately he went through it as we were trying to roll him over. Derek got another tarpon though that we got boatside as well but again he threw the hook before we could get a picture by the boat, but no big deal. Anyways a pretty great day of fishing for us despite not so great conditions with the wind. I’ve got a few more days booked this week and then plenty of time open mid august. If anyone wants to catch a silver king it’s still possible and I think we may get some nice calm weather again near the end of the week, or at least more light easterly breezes, which could really turn things on. 4 for 5
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
