Well another busy week here fishing for tarpon this May in Islamorada, Florida. It was great weather again we had a little overcast Monday with slight drizzle but with the low light conditions it made for superb tarpon fishing. We had the bridges to ourselves not sure if the chance of rain had people spooked but it wasn’t too bad at all. We ended up having a high hookup ratio and landed 5 fish and missed only one. So great day with Casey and Davita. The next day I had Casey, Nathan, and Wyatt and it was a nice sunny day slick calm. Unfortunately a lot more fishing pressure too there were probably about 30 boats down there so word had gotten out! Fishing was a little tougher we had to work at it we ended up catching one right off the bat which was nice but after that had to grind for a couple hours more for a bite. Eventually we did get a couple more right near the tide change but they ended up breaking us off in the bridge straight away. Once the tide fell we jumped around some more and had 3 more ‘short’ bites where the tarpon grabbed it and ran for a few seconds but never got the hook. You can tell when the fish get finicky they’ll do that short bite thing more and likely because all the pressure. But ample bites anyhow though we only capitalized on one of them. Wednesday I had Zak, Nathan, and Wyatt and we had a little tougher day overall. Had to really grind all day and it was work but we did end up catching a couple tarpon and possibly missed one or two more that zipped quick like we were talking about. But got two boatside and good pictures of one for Nathan to finish the day. Thursday and Friday I had Gary and Kim who fished with me several years ago. We had great fishing both days! Thursday it was a bit windy with some west wind kicking up pretty good but I figured a little change might not be a bad thing. Sure enough we ended up getting some good bites in the morning, catching a couple tarpon and losing a couple others in the bridge. We also had a couple other pick-ups we missed but not bad overall I think with 6 or 7 bites. Then Friday we could do no wrong we ended up catching 5 tarpon and getting two up boatside for good pictures and leader released the others. Kim was happy to battle a nice 90 lb tarpon for over an hour and got it to roll over for a nice picture. What a battle and I tell people getting that picture is a whole other battle than simply getting the leader on one. But good job! So all in all a great week of fishing hopefully it’ll continue here a while longer. I think it will as this year we had a late start with the late cold weather so hoping June will still be good fishing for us.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
