First week of June is down in the books. Tarpon fishing has started to get a little bit tougher as we’re entering the end of ‘prime time’ it seems. The mullet which we use for bait have really thinned out and the commercial guys that we buy them from have stopped as of yesterday as it’s not worth there time any longer. The big numbers of tarpon too have slimmed down a bit. While there are still some around the bridges you definitely have to look around with them (which we can do with our advanced sonar) and they are getting a bit more sensitive to fishing pressure. So this week on Tuesday I had Gorgio from Italy along with his father. We were able to get bait and put together a decent day, catching a nice 100 lb tarpon right off the bat we rolled over for pictures quickly. We had a couple other fish on one we got a little too tight on too early and opened the hook, and another that beat us into the bridge. We did get a couple of nice goliath groupers too though along with some other things. The next day I had the Bransons out. We worked hard at it throughout the day and not much luck early on aside from a few more goliaths and muttons. We did get caught by some rain where we had to hide under the bridge for 45 minutes, a nasty cell that blew up on top of us! Later in the trip though we moved areas and had a couple bites finally on the incoming tide missing one and then landing a nice one to finish the day. They definitely did not seem happy on this day and may have been the full moon or possibly the weather but who knows. Thursday I had Isaac and Caleb fishing and we had a bit more action. The morning early was kind of quiet again but we did get a nice goliath we pulled out from the bridge where he’d been beating us the few days before. Then on the slack tide just as it started in we started having some action on our crabs and we hooked a couple fish, catching one and missed a couple more. So that was cool and then we ended up getting a big one again at the end of the day at the other bridge. Then yesterday I had yuan out and we had a tough day we ended up missing a nice tarpon first thing drifting crabs in an area. We had another at the big bridge that beat us into the pilings as well as a goliath that did the same thing. Then we had another good two bites at the last bridge at the end of the day, one of which beat us into the bridge and cut us off and the last bait out we just pulled the hook on one. So we had our shots but when you don’t catch one and come up empty its not a good feeling but we did have the bites. So again fishing is getting a little tougher we’re not going to have loads of bait as we did the last month and we may be doing more traditional methods like drifting crabs etc… As we get more into the summer though we’ll start fishing the backcountry more for tarpon and that should get more productive and we catch more bait back there then too. July can be excellent fishing for sure for those resident fish. But I’ve got one more week here and then a few open days the 3rd week of June before we leave for the summer. Steve and Luke are available however and if you’re wanting to think about an afternoon/evening that can be a good option and you can often cherry pick the weather Capt. Luke will be running some trips using the carcasses we get from the offshore boats for tarpon bait.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
