Had a tarpon request last week from customer Dan. They were semi-flexible on dates and originally Capt. Stephen was going to take them last Thursday, but they ended up switching to Monday due to travel issues. Though also the weather did seem a little better Monday. Not that it’s been super great conditions, but we had some cold last week that had slowly evaporated and by Sunday/Monday it was spring-like conditions with southeasterly wind and water temps in the mid 70s. The guys found some large schools of tarpon around the bridges locally though they did not have any action out of them. But plenty of fish hunkered up on the bottom they could see on the livescope. They decided to then run into the backcountry everglades to try back there. Tried an island spot for some juvenile tarpon which they had no luck with, but did catch some snook and redfish. Then they worked there way back further around flamingo to some of the channels near the mainland where we often fish for larger tarpon in the later summer/fall. Not much going on there with tarpon but they did catch a few big sharks and marked a few tarpon they thought. They then fished some creek mouths and low and behold got into a good group of smaller tarpon! They ended up getting 5 or 6 good bites, jumping most of them off as those small guys can be tricky in tight quarters. But they were able to land one and get Dan his tarpon he was looking for… great work for mid january! After that they fished one more area and didn’t see much for tarpon but they did catch a big snook and a few more goliath groupers. Always great to make a fish request happen especially at a not-so-ideal time of year. We’ve got some more cold weather coming early next week, but not going to last long. Often by first or second week of February we start to have larger schools of early arrival tarpon showing up pretty consistently. The boys here will be locked and loaded with bait and ready to fish. So if you are wanting to escape the cold up north and have dreams of catching a tarpon, early February can be a good shot and I’ll of course give you my best predicitions with weather and chances. There is always still opportunities to catch stuff if its cold, just tarpon becomes less likely.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
