Well we had some major weather the last couple of days and had to move some trips around but luckily I’m able to do that these days with fishing less. So we ended up fishing Sunday evening on the 9th as I was booked Monday, and Tuesday/wednesday were kind of blowouts with major rain and 25 knot winds. Sunday honestly conditions looked OK we had a bit of a northwest breeze and prefrontal feeling with the tide ripping out. That kind of made it a little difficult to fish with all the seaweed and watch swooshing by pretty quick. But it was fishable and we found some fish around the bridges but we never had a bite! Worked really hard at it too and fished till dark but the tarpon just weren’t having it. Not the numbers of fish that were around last week either I dunno if a lot of them moved out feeling the weather change or what but it was tough. First trip in a while that I can remember not even having a bite especially in April.
Monday morning was kind of slow too we fished for several hours early on giving it all we had and only had a few jacks and nurse sharks to show for it. Though around 11 AM we finally had a tarpon bite and got leader on a nice fish but unfortunately not able to get him laid up boatside. But soon after we had one more shot and did get that fish up for a nice picture for Eric and his wife Wendy.
Then we cancelled Wednesday but I had Ryan shoot me a text that evening and asked about fishing Thursday morning which I said hey I could fit it in and had bait, so we gave it a shot. The wind had slicked out real nice and it was nice and sunny – couldn’t really ask for nicer weather. We had the tide change though and a weak falling tide which I wasn’t excited about. But we left early and had a little incoming tide early on and got a nice fish for his son Kellen. Then we ended up getting another shot about an hour later when the tide slacked up for Dylan, which we got leader on but he went through the bridge before we could get good pictures. Then right before it was time to go we hooked another one that we broke off unfortunately. But still better action than I expected for fishing around the tide change and considering how tough it was the previous couple trips.
Anyways hopefully we’re on the upswing now and we have a calm weather window for several days. I’d expect a lot more fish to be around here in mid April then there are but maybe we’ll get another push of them. Anyways I am all booked up myself for the rest of the month but I have some May dates available still. And Capt. Stephen has some fridays and saturdays available and will soon be taking some evening trips too.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
