Alright guys we’re into April and that is really the start of what we often consider ‘prime time’ tarpon fishing here in the Florida Keys. Generally speaking this is when the largest amounts of fish are to be found as we start getting good groups of migrating fish comingling with the residents that live here. They often start leaving the everglades and other early season haunts and come closer in and around the keys in the various channels, around the bridges, and bays nearby. I ended up fishing locally for a few days this week and we had some good fishing overall. Monday I actually just fished a shorter trip with a family and action was the name of the game. So we went snapper fishing and got our fill pretty quickly. After that they had asked about tarpon and I told them we could try a backcountry channel area where I hadn’t yet fished this season but was curious to try – and they would of been happy catching a few sharks if anything. Sure enough we set up I did not see a whole lot of tarpon or anything but I sat on some general GPS numbers I used to like. After about 10 minutes the rod bent over and we had a 150 lb tarpon on! We fought it and unfortunately a pack of sharks got after it. They had a tough time grabbing it and I thought it’d be too big for them to really eat. We tried doing some circles around the fish to slow the sharks down but one got a piece of the belly and that was it for the fish unfortunately. Tuesday we ended up fishing locally as mentioned and we had a really good day. We ended up hooking three fish in the first 2 hours nearby the marina and landed two of those fish. Later on we checked out the bridges as I hadn’t been there yet this season yet either. We did find some tarpon down there it wasn’t loaded up heavy yet, but enough that it looked worth fishing. We ended up jumping three smaller tarpon around there and caught a few sharks. We ran down to another bridge to look and sure enough some tarpon were there too however the tide was changing and we did not get a bite there. We finished up near home again and hooked another big fish that ended up breaking off on us. But good action around town with a good half dozen bites at least! Now yesterday things got tougher but we still made it happen. No bites early in the AM for us this time around which was strange as the tarpon were still where we had found them the previous morning but just not happy. We tried for a couple hours then we decided to run down to the bridges. The bridges were holding tarpon again and we ended up catching a tarpon early on. After that things slowed down we kept seeing tarpon but not much love for us, we did catch a couple big nurse sharks and a nice goliath grouper which was cool and a first for my angler. Then at the end we ended up jumping one more tarpon that just didn’t stay on the hook and spat the bait instantly. So all in all not bad fishing and we landed at least one tarpon each trip. I’m hopeful our bridge fishing will continue getting better and better as last year it was not all that great. So far things look pretty good! Give me a shout if you want to get out there!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
