Got out with my dad and his friend Pete along with Capt. Stephen who rode along to see what was happening. We planned to tarpon fish as the conditions over the last week have gotten right for some good early spring time fishing. That usually means lighter, warmer wind conditions and water temperatures. We had a nice 15 mph easterly breeze and water temps in the mid 70s. Steve was good enough to catch us some mullet the other day which are starting to show up thick as well. That’s often a good sign the tarpon fishing will start getting right too. So there were thousands of tarpon when we got out there – just jumping, rolling, and splashing all about. It really was incredible. We had periods where we could mark 20+ fish on the sonar… just pods after pods of them coming by. We fished our mullets as well as drifted with live pinfish and both worked pretty well. We caught two smaller fish in the 30-40 lb range and got one up for a picture. Then Pete caught a big 90 lber on the dead bait we fought for a while. He was also lucky enough to get a big bull redfish first thing in the morning. We hooked several other tarpon as well I think we had a good 7 or 8 bites for the day. About as good as you could ask for especially for the first week of February! Right now there are no cold fronts on the horizon so I’m sure those fish will keep doing there thing. And honestly I feel like with how many were back there in January when the water temps were still in the mid 60s, they may not care much if a front comes through unless it gets ridiculously cold. It’s not super busy yet though spring time starts to get that way so if you want to fish for tarpon and can make it down in the next couple of weeks, we have availability. Give us a shout and remember you can book online now through Vally!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
