Well I haven’t had a chance to do a YouTube fishing report update lately just been slammed busy especially with a couple toddlers at home! But a quick update as of late – we had a good end of March with some big fish in the backcountry and got rolling good for a while. Though early April another late cold front this past weekend it dropped into the low 60s and blew 25-30 mph for a couple days. That kind of shut the backcountry tarpon bite down though we got out today (monday) around the local bridges and there were some fish around there. Not a red hot bite but we managed a couple bites and scored a couple fish making them both count. But a weak tidal scenario we only had a couple hours of good tide then slack for several hours on both ends. But before that last week we had several days with multiple tarpon in the 60 to 120 lb range so that was really good. That was all in the backcountry for me though and often around now that starts to slow down and the local keys/bridge fishing is where it’s out through April and most of May. I always prefer fishing in the backcountry when we have a good shot back there, but we’ll see what happens from here on out. I imagine it’ll start getting good this week locally again as water temperatures get back closer to 80 degrees (they were 72 today). The fish are here and I’m hoping it will be a very strong April, May, and June as the early spring was much more hit & miss with all the late cold – but for those coming later it may be a blessing as the fish didn’t get beat up on too badly early on as sometimes things can get tough come later may/june when that happens it seems. I don’t have much available until July but I do have my young man Brandon running my old boat who has availability and is offering the evening trips as well (4 to 8 PM) so I’m referring many to him he is a young, hard working fisherman and I’ve been training him the last year or two so he knows his stuff!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
