We’re half way into March and tarpon fishing is firing up! The first week of March brought some tremendous winds but at least the severe cold fronts had come to an end. Water temperatures were back up into that ‘tarpon range’ in the low to mid 70s, and get back into the higher 70s this last week. The first week as mentioned was super windy – 20 to 25 knots every day! I did not fish much but I did fish return customer Jan on Wednesday the 4th. We made it back to the cape and with the early falling tide it was slightly calmer and we found a few jumping showing fish. We set up and moved once I think but eventually hooked him a nice tarpon of 50 or so pounds we were able to land for him. After that we hooked a monster tiger shark that we fought for a long time and got a glimpse of but it was so rough it was difficult to do much with him. The bite shut off after that and when the tide turned it got really sloppy. We ended up trying a couple other places near home but did not have any other luck. This last week the winds settled down somewhat. I fished every day and on Monday we tried for tarpon some in the morning. The bite was a bit slow and again the fish seemed to respond better on that falling tide though we had a very short falling tide window. After a couple hours we did get our bite that we missed unfortunately he jumped and spit it, and we had one other one pick up a bait and drop it. Though we did catch a few different sharks and the boys wanted some dinner so we cut it short and caught a few snappers on the way home. Tuesday I fished Matt and again it was a nicer day. Not much first thing in the AM but again after a couple hours and once we got that falling tide window, we ended up hooking two fish and landed both of them! A big shark tried to eat one of the tarpon but the tarpon was about as big as he was (a 100 lber!) We weren’t able to get boat side pictures but we did get the fish off and pretty sure were able to save him by driving circles around him with the boat to throw off the sharks. Wednesday we fished hard all day out there and did not get a tarpon bite all day! I had three guys though and we did catch over 20 sharks I would say so they at least had action. Tarpon were jumping all over the place and on this day we really got no falling tide window at all (really weird tide it was just a weak incoming all day). We did try another channel on the way home where we saw a free jumping tarpon but alas no bite there for us either. Then yesterday, Thursday, I fished a half day as we had friends coming into town. There were some fish here locally in Islamorada and we were able to put them on one early in the first hour, plus a few sharks. After that though the bite seemed to die out we didn’t really get a bite of anything else the last couple of hours. Though I did hear some tarpon bit better a little bit later in the day locally when the tide turned and came in. So there you have it, we’re starting to catch some tarpon but it’s been a bit of work though lots of fish starting to show up. Hopefully as conditions settle and we get more into April we’ll get some windows of great fishing. The next couple of weeks though its a lot of either fishing 10 minutes from the dock or running an hour to get to them in the backcountry. I’m out of town for spring break now this coming week but I’m back to fishing the week of the 23rd and have some days open starting then as well as the week of the 30th. Give me a shout to get on out!
Also Capt. Stephen has started doing a few evening/night trips for tarpon. They had good luck this week on a couple different evening trips getting a fish and handful of other shots each evening. Including a monster 150+ lb fish pictured below that may be going on the wall with Grey’s Taxidermy! If you want to mount a trophy tarpon don’t forget to ask!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
