Well I’ve had a few days off this week and spent some time up in Miami, and the few trips I did before that we didn’t really focus on tarpon as there had been some excellent snook/redfish fishing, and my anglers were all about catching fish. Tarpon have still been just kind of hit and miss, you can definitely catch them but often have to really dedicate time to get a bite or two… Today though we just were really doing snook/redfish stuff, but we saw some little guys in an area and got a few shots on them. A couple of small 5-10 lbers we hooked a double header and landed both fish, but just got one up for a picture. It worked out great as we were doing an article for Florida Sportsman, and we also caught probably 30 snook (including 3 that were jumbo 15-20 lbers!), maybe 10 redfish, and a handful of snapper, ladyfish, jacks, and trout. Just awesome fishing especially on a day when you can use it for something like that. 2 for 3
Also as far as this hurricane dorian goes – the keys should be fine. East coast of florida… not so much. We are on the ‘good’ side of the storm (southwestern side). This means we’re not going to get the heavy wind/surge, so even if this thing ends up hitting closer in Miami/homestead, it really doesn’t look like it’ll do a whole lot here. But right now all signs point to hitting closer to somewhere between palm beach and central florida area. Probably be a couple of wet days with some 20-25 mph winds, so maybe not the greatest fishing conditions but nothing crazy. In the long run it’ll probably be good for our fishing as it’ll help lower salinity in the bay with all the rain, and keep things a bit cooler with the wind/clouds/rain as we get into some of the hottest months of the year.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
