Can’t believe it’s already the middle of April but here we are! We had another fairly windy week but mid week it did get tolerable and actually with the northeast directions we’ve had in the mornings the ride out hasn’t been too bad but its been a little rougher/windier in the afternoons when it’s swung more southeast. Fishing has been fair I’ll say I’m still fishing in the backcountry as I was last week and having some luck. We fished Monday with Pete and Cynthia and got a good tarpon first thing right off the bat. We had the last trickle of falling tide and it quit right after we caught that fish. We didn’t have much action for 20-30 minutes after that so we ventured beyond to try and find a larger group of fish I had mentioned seeing the week prior. Those fish were there though today they were fairly spread out so as far as looking on the sonar and trying to find a big wad of them to sit in, you kinda had to just find one or two and sit and wait. We worked hard and caught quite a few big sharks but the tarpon just did not seem super happy. We had one swimming in between our baits several times for about 15 minutes I saw him roll 2 or 3 times but still no bite out of him. After a couple hours we finally jumped one but it was a fairly lazy bite that spit it instantly and it was gone. But all in all happy to have gotten one. I did not fish Tuesday but I did on Wednesday again. I had Ronald and Suzanne out. As mentioned the ride out was very nice I ran right across the bay and it wasn’t super rough, it even appeared to almost slick out while we were fishing a couple of times but then started blowing a little bit. We had the same bite in the same area and started off with a nice fish for Ronald. Had a little more tide today so we moved around and set up on another fish we saw and had a bite instantly but it jumped off. After that we had a few sharks and the tide quit. We moved around up into an area where we had really good fishing a couple weeks ago but I mentioned that had turned off for me after a few days. Today though those fish were back there and we set up on a few we saw and sure enough hooked another 60 lber that we landed after a good fight. No sharks after them today which was a bonus! After that we caught a few more sharks and a nice medium size sawfish which was really cool. We decided to run back around town and tried down around the bridges. We did find a small group of fish around a bayside spot and saw one boat fighting one there. We set up on them however we did not get a bite. Looked at the bridge for a minute before it was time to go and we caught a couple of big nurse sharks. All in all another great day getting a couple nice tarpon. Thursday I had Ron and crew visiting and we caught 3 more tarpon! The day got really nice and calmer winds. Fish were happy we had 5 bites in total i think.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
