Well we’re nearing the end of July and I’m still getting out after some tarpon! Thankfully there has still been plenty of resident fish around… many in the 15 to 40 lb range which make for great fun. Really there have been very good numbers of them which is nice to see and I’m hoping they’ll stick around for a few more months. They have not always been biting super great though. It really seems the calmer days when it’s blowing 10mph or less, it’s been much more productive. The days when we’ve been having 15 mph winds it’s often been just a handful of bites and hope you connect on them. So before last week I fished a couple of days and we had overall good fishing. On a windier day we ended up catching two tarpon, and jumping off a couple of others, so 4 bites in total. Plus several large sharks. All in all not too bad especially considering again it was a windier day. A couple days before that we had one of those dream setups with a near slick calm day. The tarpon were just balled up tight… like we were in schools of 30-40 fish just all hanging together. We ended up getting 15 or so bites I think that day, probably the most bites i’ve had in a day almost all season. We only landed 2 though as they were just spitting the baits instantly! We tried different approaches, hooks, bait sizes, and all that but just one of those things. Though my people still had a ball and we were able to get a couple to the boat at least. The last week I fished a couple of days and both of those were a bit windier days (for July) blowing 15ish mph. Thankfully mostly east which isn’t a terrible direction for us. Both days were a bit of a grind we found plenty of tarpon but had to work at it. Had falling tide for a few hours in the morning and we got 3 bites on one of the days and landed 2, and the other day we had 2 bites and landed one. The bites were definitely more on that early morning side and that seemed to be when it was a little calmer closer to sun rise. Another reason why we like to get up and out early! We did break up the 2nd day with some decent snook action too so that filled the day nicely. So all in all tarpon fishing is still decent and you will have your great days mixed in when conditions are right. There’s been plenty of bait around in the backcountry so that is good and often something that can also make fishing tough. But nice when that’s easy. I am fishing 3 days this coming week and that’ll be it for July. I’ll be fishing more in August and September this year, and already am offering discounted rates for September trips currently. There’s also still been some good opportunity on half day trips and evening trips for tarpon. Capt. Trent has been on some local tarpon his last few evenings, and that can often be booked short notice. So if you want to get out shoot me an email or book on Vally!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
