Just wrapped up another great week of islamorada tarpon fishing in May here. We had fabulous weather… it’s really stabilized for May which is nice and again the forecast still looking great in the 10-day range. Still good numbers of fish around too. We had a tournament going on last week and it was pretty busy on the water most of this week as well. Some days competing with 30+ boats down around the bridge. Though we still had good fishing overall which was great! I think we had 4-6 fish ‘technically’ landed each day this past week. A technical catch means getting them to the wind-on leader, basically the last 20 or so foot of the line. Though it was tough getting fish ‘rolled’ over which if you are wanting that glory picture is required. It really takes having the fish hooked in the proper place, having the ability to really put ample and correct pressure on the fish, and a little bit of luck to get that to happen. We are usually happy to be able to roll one fish over in a day for a good picture especially when fishing at the bridges as there is a lot that can go wrong there. But if it easy it wouldn’t be as satisfying! Anyways we had good incoming tide on our morning this past week. The bite was pretty good through that incoming, and then again on the fall in the early afternoon they rallied again. So consistent fishing through both tides. I will say after the tournament was over the fish did seem to settle down a little… we had a couple days last week where they were just acting crazy and you could tell the pressure had an effect on them… really making crazy runs through the bridge at high speed, doing figure 8s, etc… So next week should be good fishing I imagine. I did have a cancellation and could go either May 14 or 15 if someone is looking to go. June I have a few dates left as well and of course Capt. Stephen and Capt. Trent have availability as well. Those night trips are often a good bet in June as it starts to get into the heat of summer, being out in the early evening is just a nice time to be on the water and the bite often turns on near sunset.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
