Had Todd and Darrell again today. We stuck it out for the whole day. Caught mullet good early this morning. Fished around town we had falling tide most all of the morning. We caught one big fish right off the bat on the bayside. A nice 110 lb fish for Darrell his biggest tarpon yet. Ate a nice live mullet off the surface. After that we ran down to the bridges again. Fishing wasn’t as insane as yesterday but was pretty good for us. No action on live baits but we got some bites on dead bait and went 2 for 5 down there. After the tide quit we came back up the road to some ocean side spots I hadn’t fished in a while. Lots of fish out there but unfortunately they beat us up. We had 5 bites on live bait and just missed all 5 of them for no good reason. Though we landed 3 fish for the day and still nice to have action all throughout the day at every spot. 3 for 11
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
4/24/15 Florida Keys Bridge Tarpon Fishing in April
Well after yesterday I was a little nervous about the fishing today. We tried a spot where we had good luck last night and saw fish all over the place rolling. But again they just did not want to eat. We had a couple blow up our baits, but not in the normal fashion where you see them trying to eat it. These fish almost just skyrocketed straight out of the water right near the mullet but never grabbed him. Anyways after an hour we decided to switch things up and try somewhere totally new where I hadn’t been in a while. We saw plenty of fish and set up near some structure. Soon we had fish chasing our baits and it was crazy action. We landed 5 tarpon out of 15 or so bites, I honestly lost count. I know we went through 18 live mullets though, a few of them cudas got, but thats how good the action was. We also caught 3 on dead bait too. Anyways we had 2 and a half hours of balls to the wall insane fishing with the last of the falling tide. Once we ran out of bait we went to look for more and caught a little bit in a big mud. Though we decided to cut the day to a 3/4 day and save the rest of our bait for tomorrow as I’m fishing the same party again. Tough to top our morning anyways and didn’t make sense to go through tons of bait to maybe get one more bite after seeing what the morning was like. 5 for 15
4/23/15 Florida Keys April Tarpon Report
Had a morning half day and an evening trip today. Our morning was tough we managed to catch bait good and got a nice 7 AM departure. However the fish were very finicky. First place we stopped where I’d been having luck the last week or so every morning. Saw a few fish but not any activity on our baits, no cheap shots or busts or nothing! Eventually we left and ran down the road near the bridges. Saw some fish rolling there though same thing, just not very interested in eating. We fished hard and to no avail. I tried another spot in the bay and more of the same saw some fish laying on the bottom but could not get them interested. Finally we ran back near home and I saw a good group of fish in a channel I normally don’t fish so we gave it a shot. We got ate up by big jacks and managed to land a few of those, and we finally did get one tarpon bite though he was off as quickly as he was on. We managed to land a few sharks too. Gave it an extra 30 minutes but fish just didn’t seem happy. Tonight was a different story we had action right away and eventually hooked a nice 100 lb fish. Landed him and went back to it. The tarpon weren’t pulling you out of the boat, but we were getting bit every 20-30 minutes. Missed a few fish and then eventually hooked another 90 lb fish that almost spooled us. We had to get up on plane chasing him but we got him. Ended the night 2 for 6 or so. 0 for 1 and 2 for 6
