We’re into May and wanted to give another tarpon fishing update here for Islamorada. Unfortunately April closed out as being one of the worst Aprils I’d experienced tarpon fishing here in Islamorada. We did not ever get any numbers of fish showing up at ch.2 or ch. 5 bridges, and our local channels had handful of resident fish that we were able to pick away at. But even those got pretty wise and it was really difficult getting bites out of them. Long key bridge had some fish and still does but not the numbers we normally see, and those ones too are very finicky. I fished there a half dozen times and had hooked a handful of fish but had not even landed one yet. However the last 10 days or so I found a good group of fish in the backcountry we’ve been having a lot of luck with. Getting more my usual numbers of bites and catches for this time of year at least! It’s not a huge school of fish and I’m not sure how much longer they’ll stick around but I’m leaving them alone for a few days and fingers crosses they’ll be happy again for me next week. But we’ve been getting anywhere from 6 to 10 bites a day back there. It’s taken some commitment and leaving the dock a little earlier than usual but it’s paid off handsomely. I don’t know if I’ll be doing any more bridge fishing this season we’ll see what next week brings but in some years past I’m already starting to phase out of doing it in another couple weeks here anyways as sometimes it’s starting to fizzle out after a good run. Though again this year it just never seemed to get started really. I did hear there was a good load of fish down in Key West so we’ll see if they end up making there way up this way who knows. But I’m going to be keeping my eyes open in the backcountry and hoping to find some more cooperative fish back there and maybe even mixing in some other types of fishing especially as we get into June. Anyways there have been a few more fish biting in the evenings and Capt. Trent and Capt. Steve do have some more short notice evening availability if anyone is looking to go. I’ll be opening my June calender shortly but if you want a date with myself feel free to reach out and I can pencil you in tenatively. I’m also hoping July and the rest of summer will be good with backcountry tarpon fishing, I’m sure it won’t be any tougher than April was at least! Will have another update after next week.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
