Well I got out yesterday on a short notice trip in the backcountry. Wasn’t quite sure what to expect but we’ve had prevailing calm, warm weather. Which if you can take the heat isn’t always a bad thing fishing wise. We played it safe and spent some time looking for bait early. Was able to catch a few local mullet as well as some small pilchards. We ran out into the backcountry with snook really on the agenda. Jumped around a few spots on the high water without too much luck aside from a small redfish. Then on the 3rd stop we got into a few snook and managed to hook a nice small juvenile tarpon we landed. We had to literally pull him out of the mouth of some aggressive lemon sharks. They’ve been very bad lately so definitely be careful when you are fishing in the backcountry waters. After that we made a little longer run that I like this time of year and sure enough it was absolutely loaded with all sizes of mullet. Tarpon were there too we ended up throwing the net for 3rd round and caught nice small finger mullets which were really what I was looking for. Caught another tarpon there live lining one of those guys out which was fun. We landed him right in time to run to another spot where I hoped we would bail the snook… as another boat had just showed up and I figured he might be going to the same spot. But we got in there and caught a good 15 or so snook and then caught a nice big one to end the trip. So it’s great to see so much bait around and some tarpon too plus good snook fishing. I may take a few more trips this month but also Capt. Brandon and Capt. Trentin are at the ready to go. The local tarpon fishing has been pretty good too I know both those guys have been catching multiple smaller tarpon each trip lately and again the bait is fairly consistent. We often try to stay ahead of it with a cooler of dead baits just so we don’t get stuck. But if you are in town and want to go tarpon fishing in July in Islamorada, give me a a shout and we’ll get you out on the water and as mentioned fishing and weather is good for it.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
