Well I’m exhausted just fished a full day and a night trip which I am not doing a lot of this year. Though I will do them on occasion when conditions are good short notice. Anyways today was good fishing we caught a nice tarpon early on live bait in local islamorada. Then we ran into the backcountry and did some light tackle jigging. In the afternoon we found the tarpon in the backcountry channels and caught 2 more in the last hour. Great day with 3 tarpon! This evening fishing was tough I caught some live bait in between trips and we went back out. We had a lame tide for close to 2 hours, very slow to switch and very weak starting and stopping. Anyways I fished 3 different areas and saw fish in all places but not much for a response. Didn’t see another boat hook up the entire night. But finally in the last 20 minutes we had a good cheap shot and about 10 minutes later we hooked and caught a nice 50 lb fish to end the night. Great day! 3 for 3 and 1 for 1
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
3/29/16 + 3/30/16 Islamorada Tarpon Report
3/29/16 – Tarpon fished today we ran into the backcountry to start and had a load of bait already from the afternoon before. We saw plenty of fish back there however they were not cooperating. We moved around a few times with fish rolling all over but they just wouldn’t bite. The red grass got very bad too and made it tough to fish by the end of it. We did catch a few sharks and a cobia. Mid day we came back around town to finish up and we did have some tarpon action we did hook a fish however he jumped off right away. Then we had some cheap shots of tarpon busting the mullet or flashing them but not eating. We found another group at the end of the day though same thing they were just flashing or busting and wouldn’t eat. 0 for 1
3/30/16 – Today we tarpon fished and did some rod bending mid day. In the morning fishing was good we found some fish in the bay channels and we had good activity in the morning for the 1st hour. We had 3 solid eats though unfortunately the fish didn’t stay on. One bite we had the fish on for a good 30 seconds but he jumped off. Unfortunately my angler who missed two fish had been leaving the rod in the rod holder not following direction and unfortunately paid the price. A tarpon bite comes very fast and the couple seconds it takes you to pick a rod up out of the holder and get situated sometimes is too long before the fish is gone. Different types of baits call for different approaches but for live mullet fishing you always want to hold the rod, yes sometimes it can get boring and frustrating but the nature of fishing as soon as you put the rod down that bite is going to come! We caught some trout, ladyfish, and other assorted fish mid day, and then tried the tarpon again in the afternoon and had one cheap shot around the bridge, but that was all she wrote. Hopefully my luck turns around it’s been a very tough March – I’m ready for April! 0 for 3
3/28/16 Everglades March Tarpon Fishing
Had a full day today after enjoying my 1st day off yesterday in 3 weeks! We caught some bait yesterday afternoon so I was loaded up. We tried locally for tarpon early and hit some of the channels and areas I saw them on Saturday morning, though today I didn’t see any at all there! Very strange, we did catch a few sharks and a big sting ray and lost a jumbo goliath grouper into the bridges, so at least we stayed busy. After that we went and caught some tripletails in the gulf and gave the tarpon a try back in the everglades channels. We sat for about 40 minutes and eventually hooked a nice 60 lb fish we landed. I was stoked and then we went off the beaches of the mainland to give it a try, didn’t see much out there but we caught about a half dozen sharks and called it a day. Fishing isn’t real easy right now but it should get better and better, hopefully no more fronts will mess things up! 1 for 1
