Got out with Chris and Paul again today, whom I also have the next two days. They had two great days on Saturday and Sunday. Today the winds kicked up south, and were really honking by mid day, so I was thinking fishing may be tough. We struggled with bait in the morning, spent about an hour to catch 15 mullets, and checked multiple areas but didn’t see a whole lot. Anyways we went to work with that. We actually had good fishing we caught 3 tarpon in our first stop along with plenty of sharks. Two of the tarpon Chris had we got to the leader, though unfortunately not to the hand, but landed fish none the less. Pauls we got to the boat for a nice picture. I burned through our mullet fast, I’d rather use ’em when I think they are biting then try to stretch it out. Plus we had seen some mullet up on the flat in some muds. We went and caught more bait after that, it was tough and we had to make several throws, but finally got them good at the end after I’d almost had enough. We went right back to the tarpon and immediately put two fish in the air, these ones didn’t stay on at all. After that it slowed down a bit, we made one more move and Chris got a tarpon that stayed on all the way to the end and we got pictures and freed him. All in all a great day the most bites I’ve had in recent memory surprising with the snotty conditions. The next two days it’s suppose to stay windy out of the south, ugh… Hopefully the fishing will hold up. Saturday looks like it may get nicer, and sunday the wind is ‘suppose’ to go back out of the east which will be great. 4 for 6
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
6/5/17 June Tarpon Fishing Islamorada
Got out with Mike and his son and daughter, Mike and Jill, today for a full day. Tarpon was a request so we focused on that most of the day. I checked a few spots early while waiting on the tide to change but didn’t see a whole lot. I ran to where we’d been having luck the last few days to give it a whirl. Once the tide got moving, the sharks got active. Blacktips, bonnetheads, and some big lemons! Didn’t have a tarpon bite early on though. I moved once and caught a big blacktip, but still no tarpon. Did see a few fish rolling here and there though not often. On the 3rd move we got on them, and had a flurry of action that lasted about 10 minutes. We jumped off one small fish right away. Then about 5 minutes later we hooked one that we got up to the wind-on leader, about 15 feet from the boat, though he jumped and threw the hook there. A technical release since we had the leader. The third bite came about 5 minutes after that. Jill got a nice little tarpon about a 25 lber. He jumped and went crazy several times, but we got him to the boat and up for a few pictures before releasing him. After that things slowed down for tarpon. We caught a few more sharks, and tried some different channels, but no luck. We finished the day catching a few trout and ladyfish. 2 for 3
6/4/17 June Tarpon Fishing Everglades Islamorada Florida Keys
Got out with Paul and Chris again today. The weather didn’t both us too much though some squalls were passing through the bay but we stayed out of them. We caught some bait early… the summer time bait is really showing up and that is a good thing hopefully means it’ll be easy for bait the next couple months. We checked some of the far distant areas for tarpon with it being flat calm early, though didn’t see any signs of life. We looked hard too but not much, I didn’t even bother to try and fish. We ran back and hit the channels where i’d been having some luck. One area has held fish semi-consistently, and we started there. Right off the bat we hooked a double header tarpon which was awesome! Landed both fish too. After that it seemed to quite right down. We fished for another 45 minutes or so, then Paul hooked a nice 100 lb fish! We fought him for a little bit and got him to the boat as well for some pictures and got a healthy release after 30 minutes or so. After that I decided to try some other areas since it seemed to be slowing down. We never had another tarpon bite, nor saw another fish either. We did catch a hammerhead shark, and a few other sharks, but that was all. A fellow captain I talked to fished some other areas and said he really struggled never having a tarpon bite all day, so we felt lucky to get what we did! Hopefully some more fish move into the backcountry and settle into the areas, right now you just have to pick and move and hope a few swim by you… no guaranteed home runs right now! 3 for 3
