Broke in the first day of May the right way! Conditions didn’t look great to start with the wind was still howling and we had some passing squalls throughout the morning. We did hook a tarpon early on in one of the local channels though unfortunately we jumped him off after a few big jumps. The sharks were active though and kept us busy. After a while we had to run in to avoid some rain storms and regroup. We headed back out and found a little bit of bait on the way. I was able to catch a few but unfortunately had tweaked my back the day before, and a few throws of the net didn’t do that much good. But we got what we needed. The late morning/afternoon ended up being much nicer, the sun came out and the winds weren’t nearly as bad as the day before. We ran down to the bridges to try next and caught the start of the incoming tide. Found a few fish off one of the banks, however they were not interested in feeding we gave it a hard try and moved several times. We ended up fishing near one of the bridges and could see some fish on the bottom machine training back and forth. We had to fight the sargasm weed, but eventually got a good bite on our live mullet and caught a nice 100 lb fish! After that we caught a few more sharks and a nice mutton snapper, then we got one last tarpon to finish the day about a 50 lber. Was glad to get a couple, I have a big group the next 4 days so will likely be mixing it up each day but I’m sure a little tarpon will be on the agenda. 2 for 3
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
4/30/17 Last day of April Tarpon Fishing in the Florida Keys
More insanely high winds today it was blowing 25-30 out of the southeast! My guys over from England wanted to give it a shot, so we left out early at 6 AM. I had caught bait yesterday and had it stashed away. We tried locally in some channels first thing, where there had been a little bit of a bite yesterday and we had gotten a tarpon. However today was a different story, we caught a couple sharks, big jacks, and a sting ray, in 2 spots and about 2 1/2 hours of fishing. Of the 10 or so other boats in the area, I only saw one hook a tarpon (right next to us of course!) We did have a tarpon bust in between our baits, but never gave us a nibble. After that we tried to head down to Long Key bridge where there had been a good bite earlier in the week when it was calmer. However it was just too rough to fish comfortably. We got in a little trouble getting the anchor line tangle on my transducer as I was moving trying to avoid the boat bumping into the bridge from the big swells. Luckily we got everything straightened out but did bump into the bridge and get a nice little crack in my gel coat, but some days thats the price of admission! Anyways after that the guys wanted to get some stuff for dinner so we bailed on the tarpon and caught some nice mangrove snappers in the channels. Well I had a nice little roll of catching fish while it lasted but all good things must come to an end. Looks like tomorrow the winds are suppose to come down a little bit, and Tuesday looks like it’ll be very nice… let’s hope so! 0 for 0
4/29/17 Late April Tarpon Fishing in Islamorada
Winds kicked up today about 25 mph out of the southeast so it was rough! My guys booked me last minute as I had the day scheduled off but decided to fish the morning if someone wanted to go. We tried locally around the bridges and didn’t have much luck, it was tough fishing with the kicking wind, weed, etc… We ended up fishing close to home the last hour and a half, and within 20 minutes we hooked a nice 100 lb tarpon! It ended up taking the rest of the morning to catch, we got him on the leader several times but he wouldn’t cooperate for a boatside picture, so we ended up popping him off as we were trying to get him to roll over. Anyways the guys were happy to land one they had fished down at bahia honda the night before and hooked 6 (it’s supposedly going off down there right now!) but they didn’t get any to the boat as most got in the bridge, jumped off, and one even got eaten by a shark! Unfortunately we didn’t get the good pics of this one, but they were happy to have officially caught one. Full day tomorrow, may head down to the big bridge at long key as it’s been good fishing down there though I really don’t like dealing with the 50+ boats there but with as windy as it is, might be the best option. 1 for 1
