Got out with Mike and Andy today for some tarpon fishing here in March. The Islamorada area usually starts to fire off more in March with tarpon as it gets consistently warmer and many of those tarpon get a little happier. This year we had a lot of late cold weather in February though it didn’t stop us from catching some at least. About a week ago we had another extreme one with temperatures getting down in the mid 40s again but we had slick calm days yesterday and today. The tarpon definitely were showing back up though water temps were still in the high 60s so on the chillier side than we like. We were lucky though and Mike got on a tarpon in the first 30 minutes. After the tide switched and started coming in he got on another on a couple moves later. Not too shabby especially considering we weren’t seeing quite the numbers I was hoping for. Enough for sure but I think we are still due for a bigger group of tarpon to come in. After that things slowed down for us we jumped around a few times and had a shark bite or two but that was it. We moved further inshore and found another group of tarpon though. Andy had a couple shots pretty quickly he had one fish suck in a bait and lay on it and as soon as we reeled in to check the bait he took off and spit it. Then about 20 minutes later he had another one on that jumped and spit that bait. We were getting down to the wire and had two baits left so we made another move and marked a few fish. Set back up with the last baits and sure enough after 10 more minutes, Andy connected and had a nice 30-40 lb fish that we landed for a nice picture. So all in all a great day landing 3 tarpon… best fishing I’ve had yet this year for them. I’m hoping with that late cold weather we’ll have some better later season fishing as it should’ve prevented a lot of early season fish from getting too beat up. If you’re wanting to get out in March let me know I have some dates open as well as Capt. Steve. I’ve also opened up a little bit of early June the first half or so… for those that are looking to get that end of school year trip in with the kids! June and July can be excellent tarpon fishing!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
