Well I had a few extra days off this week so not fishing a bunch but I did fish Monday with H and Sebastian. The forecast this week looked very wet we had a lot of southwesterly winds and heavy chances of rain. However Monday was very nice and to be honest even Tuesday and Wednesday were not bad and totally fishable. Some scattered rain but very avoidable and honestly the rain will probably be a good thing to help cool the water temperatures and drop salinity in the bay. Anyways on Monday we decided to start fishing near home around the bridges. I was thinking about running into the backcountry where we had found a bunch of tarpon last week, though that southwest wind direction usually isn’t very good for back there. Even though it was only blowing 10 mph it just seems to kind of shut them down. So we hit the bridges and we had a good start. Both H and Sebastian got to catch a tarpon and got both of them to the hand for pictures. After that the tide quit and we decided to try our luck running out back… but we didn’t run where I was thinking previously we tried some other channels back there. Sure enough there were a few tarpon in them which was good to see. Not tons but a handful… we jumped around once and the 2nd stop we got a bite and caught another one. Then we moved one more time and had another one jump off. After that we had a couple of sharks and then decided to run back towards home to try again. Sure enough we had a good bite on the first stop back around the bridges but we pulled the hooks on it right away. After that we moved a few times and had some action with a nice cuda and couple other things we missed… one of which may have been another tarpon but can’t say for sure. So anyways we definitely had 5 bites or possibly more and landed 3. Not too shabby for the conditions we had. I know Capt. Stephen has had some decent luck with tarpon the last couple of days too even with the continued southwesterly winds. He’s stayed local since the rain had been worse in the backcountry. Though looks like by the weekend it’s suppose to get nicer and next week we will have a little bit of wind but more easterly which shouldn’t be a bad thing. That backcountry tarpon fishing hopefully will light up again. As far as bait goes we’ve still been able to catch mullet fairly consistently so that is good. I’ve got a few days next week and then we’ll be out of town the last week of June until July 8th… thought Capt. Steve and Capt. Trent are both available if you are looking to get out there.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
