Well we had a phenomenal week of fishing here in Islamorada for tarpon this past week. I fished my standard Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on 4/15/24, 4/16/24, and 4/17/24. Conditions were fairly similar all of those days with moderate east/southeast winds. We had just had a cool front a few days before at the end of the previous week so temperatures are actually still on the cooler side for what we’ve come to expect for this time of year in recent years. Though this year it really seems the cooler winter-like weather and late cool fronts have been sticking around through the spring. Overall this probably isn’t a bad thing for the ecosystem as you hear how much damage the heat of summer can do. But it can lead to tougher fishing especially if you are here when it’s cooled off when those fish have been happy with it being warm. Anyways luckily this was several days later and back to more spring like tradewinds and on the warming trend.
So Monday I had Ian and Brook down for a late 50th birthday trip for Ian. He had never landed a tarpon before but had done plenty of fishing in Jacksonville and elsewhere in Florida for different species. We had a great day we got leader on 6 fish and I think had another bite or two. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get a ‘face grab’ on any of the tarpon. We had several up boatside but they kept shaking off or going through the leader when it was time to do that. Which happens and sometimes you feel like you lost your fish at that point but that is just part of the game with tarpon pictures are never a guarantee! And also one of the reasons I try to get good picture and video of the fight and jumps. So fishing was a good bit better than I expected as we had kind of a lame falling tide for our fishing window this week. We had a trickle of incoming in the morning and then it slacked up. And the falling tide only lasted a couple hours or so before it slacked up again, and then it started racing in again for a good long time well past when we were out. But we ended up having somewhat of a rally of bites around the start of the falling tide and the start of the rise again, as well as a couple through the slack. Sometimes in those scenarios the fish really dont feed much during that weak current, but we were able to work through it with some level of productivity.
On Tuesday the tide again was similar but of course an hour or so later, so we had a little more incoming in the morning when we got out. I had Jared and his dad Marvin down. Fishing was good to us again and very similar action I think we had around the same number of bites and again 6 landed fish. We were lucky to get a good fish up for pictures today as well.
Then finally on Wednesday I had Travis, Cathy, and Tommy. Travis was visiting from Texas and it was a bucket list trip to catch a tarpon. We had a good couple hours of incoming tide to start the day and it was hot and heavy action for the first hour and a half. We caught 4 tarpon in that window and 3 of those bites came really quick, before I even had a chance to get my second bait out in most cases! Right away we got one up to the boat for pictures which was awesome. Things slowed down a little when the tide quit for us. But when it started to fall we started getting action again and we ended up catching 2 more tarpon and missed or lost 3 others I think. Just phenomenal fishing that day and such fun people to fish with they were really excited about it.
So overall what a week that was my best week thus far with 18 fish landed! And as mentioned it was around funky tides so it goes to show you that you never really know what to expect out there. People are always wanting to know the best time to come and I always say it’s very hard to say… I can give you a good idea a few days out once we know the weather and short term conditions, as well as how the fish are biting. But knowing a month or more ahead of time it’s very difficult to forecast. As I always say when booking just try to stay away from that full moon that’s one thing you can easily predict way out and not that it’s always bad but occasionally I notice we have difficult day time fishing right near the full moon.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
