Well we’re near the end of September and the tarpon bite has still been fairly consistent! I had Greg out earlier this week and we had banner fishing. He booked a trip a little while ago after reading my September newsletter talking about how good tarpon fishing had been lately. I think we hooked over 10 fish and it was just easy livin’. Some days are like that. We had a good incoming tide early on which as I’ve mentioned lately just seems to be the better fishing right now. We didn’t really have to move too much the fish just kept coming by us, sometimes in packs of 6 or 8! We caught a double header at one point which was fun especially with just one angler! Had another big moose fish we hooked at the end that we fought for over an hour but unfortunately couldn’t roll her over. But great day none the less! Today on Thursday I had return customer Mike. Weather was very questionable early at 5 AM, didn’t think we were going to get out. But by 6:30 it started to dry up so we left soon after that. Today the tarpon were not super thick like they were a few days ago. We had slack tide first thing, so I was hoping once it picked up going in they would start to respond a little more. We made a couple moves early on and after about 30 minutes put one in the air! Then the tide started in and it never got into a red hot bite, nor did I see a ton of fish. But the few good looks we got when we were scanning with sonar for tarpon, we were able to get those fish to bite and hooked 3 more. The first one was another 100 lber that we fought for a good 45 minutes that again we couldn’t quite get to roll over. Then we got a couple of 40-50 lbers to the hand after that for good pictures. Never got rained on really either so that was a plus too!
So fishing is still pretty good for tarpon. Baits been around too I did catch bait for my Thursday trip the day before. Some real nice mullet muds with lots of mullet so that is nice to have around. I have plenty of days open next week and Capt. Stephen is returning too, so we can definitely still get you out in October if you are looking to catch the silver king here in the off season.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
