Thought we may have gotten rained out today but not the case. It poured until a little after 6 AM but then was nice and calm the rest of the day. We had some good baits saved from yesterday afternoon and I went right to fishing with them. We had some tarpon up pretty quickly right close by. We had several cheap shots and probably a half dozen solid bites. We hooked and landed two fish, all were smaller fish hence the tougher time getting the hooks in. Thes ones we landed were both about 40 lbs. Perfect for my anglers who were more interested in getting fish to cooperate for some good pictures rather than just catching numbers. They got some great boatside pics on their digital SLR cameras. Anyways after that we ran into the backcountry for some shark fishing and that was very good, we even jumped a couple more tarpon back there. Solid fishing today throughout. 2 for 8
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
4/21/15 April tarpon fishing in the Keys
More tarpon action today. I had Jason and James again from yesterday. We had the last hour or so of falling tide first thing this morning. We caught bait good at first light and went out to fish. Did the same routine as yesterday since it worked well. We were in fish right away we missed one smaller fish and soon after hooked another. A 30 lber we got to the boat but then he pulled off though we had leader on him. A little later we had a nice 80 lb fish eat a surface bait and took off. We chased him for quite a ways and finally got him to the boat. Didn’t cooperate for pictures but we already had some good ones from yesterday. After that fight the tide had switched though seemed like things turned off. We fished another 40 minutes or so and did not see much of anything, no fish rolling nor other boats hooked up. So we decided to run down the road. We set up at the next spot and soon had a fish up and flash a bait, unfortunately the bait had died and the fish thought twice about eating it. A boat nearby jumped a tarpon and we fished a little while longer. Right when I was about to call it quits and move we hooked a nice 90 lb fish. We chased him down and got him to the boat. After that we caught a big cuda and had some others cut us off we so moved to the bridge. Lots of boats fishing there and we did see a few tarpon busting and rolling, though nobody hooked up. We gave it an hour or so and didn’t see much happening so we decided to cut it to a 3/4 day. Anyways 3 tarpon landed not bad though not quite as good of action as the previous day. Maybe we’re a little spoiled! There was plenty of bait around the last couple afternoons I went and stocked up afterwards. Tomorrow sounds like it may rain a little hopefully we’ll be able to get some fishing in though! 3 for 4.
4/20/15 Spring time tarpon fishing in Islamorada stays hot
Well had a couple days off. Yesterday was a planned day off, though Saturday I had caught bait early and was waiting at the dock for my people. They never showed up! Some confusion on their end I think… oh well it was there loss, and was nice to have a couple days off. Anyways today I was back at it and fishing was pretty good. We caught bait OK and had pretty good action in the morning. Incoming tide for most of the day. Some packs of smaller fish were coming up and we finally hooked one and had another one eat at the same time though we missed him. Caught the one fish and then had some more blowing up the mullets, and a couple more bites we missed. It seemed to slow down a little so we ran down the road and caught a few baits on the way. Got down to the bridges and didn’t see too much going on so I tried another spot further away. We hooked a fish right away that drug us around for a bit. Landed him and then repeated that process two more times. Ended up landing 3 more fish, two large ones of 80 and 110 lbs. Great way to end the day. Caught some more bait on the way home as I have the same customers tomorrow, nice to be loaded for the next day! 4 for 8