Got out with Kurt and his sons today for a 3/4 day tarpon trip. We had some weather over the weekend… a cold front came in and stiff north breeze. Didn’t get super cold but it did drop the water temperature down to the high 60s in parts of the bay so it definitely cooled off from what it was. I had heard fishing was pretty tough back in the backcountry overall with that near 10 degree temperature drop in the water. Today it had gotten nicer though we still had bit of a northwest breeze and on the chillier side with water temps in the low 70s. The guys wanted tarpon so we went on the hunt for mullet as we were starting from scratch. Found a few nearby that we kept live and then ran around in the bay looking for some muds. We keep our eyes peeled for bombing birds and sure enough we saw a bunch of them in a cut on a nearby flat going crazy bombing. We dropped in and made a couple throws and had more mullet than we knew what to do with. I decided to fish locally around town as I wasn’t sure about making the long run in the backcountry especially with the conditions being a little strange. We found some fish around the bridges but they weren’t too happy. We did catch quite a few large jack crevelles though. The tarpon were definitely there but just not responsive. Once the tide quit coming in we made a run back towards home and fished the local channels where the tide had already started falling. We found a good group of tarpon in one channel and set up and hooked one in about 30 minutes. Nice 80 lber we got boatside but didn’t quite want to roll over for us. After that we found some more in that same area and we hooked a 140 lb big fish! Same thing got her boatside and almost rolled over but she made one kick of her tail and popped, but we were able to get some pics of her next to the boat at least. The boys were stoked to have each caught a big tarpon! Weathers getting more stabilized now and no fronts on the horizon so we should have some good fishing for tarpon the next week or two I think. If you want to get out there give us a shout we have trips available and evening trips are an option as well especially if you are wanting to cherry pick the conditions.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
