More good fishing today. We hooked and landed 3 big tarpon in the backcountry today, lost another one on the bite. Had leftover bait from yesterday. We also caught a keeper cobia and some sharks back there. Really good fishing. The ‘red weed of doom’ is bad so there is a small window of good fishing, once the current starts rolling in hard it is getting worse. Making it tough to keep baits out without getting weeded up. Anyways I’ll be at it again tomorrow, still holding good on bait from the previous day. 3 for 4
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
3/3/15 Florida Keys Backcountry Tarpon Fishing in March
Great day today. We caught some mullets early in the morning. Riding into the backcountry we came across a bunch of them in a channel. One throw and I caught about 6 dozen – we are in business! Ran into the backcountry to tarpon fish today. We found some fish back there, tide was slack when we arrived but soon coming in. Saw some fish roll and free jump. As soon as current got moving we hooked up. We ended up going 4 for 4, nice fish up to 90 lbs or so. Caught a few sharks too. Eventually they slowed down a bit and the ‘red weed’ that we often get back there in the spring got the better of us. This weed gets all over your baits and lines, making it very tough to fish. Luckily we caught it at the right time before the current ran to hard and caused that weed to make it tough to fish. Anyways we ended the day in another area catching some big sharks, including a large bull shark. 4 for 4.
3/2/15 March Florida Keys Tarpon Fishing Report
Good news tarpon fishing in the florida keys sounded good all around today. I talked to several guides who fished different areas, and there were fish reported in many of them. We fished locally where I’d been having success as of late. This morning bait fishing was a little tough but we manged a few mullet before leaving the dock with my charter. Action this morning was all on live bait we set up and soon after had a tarpon ‘cheap shotting’ our mullets – playing with them, smacking them, etc… We ended up getting 4 or so solid bites, however were not able to really stick any of them. Large mullet and not super large tarpon, which sometimes the baits are so big it is tough for them to find the hook. Anyways the action was worth it and we had plenty of ‘cheap shots’ too for close to 2 hours. Mid day we looked for more bait but it was very tough, some big muds and did see some mullet showering, though there were not happy flipping where they would be catchable. Anyways we went and caught some snapper for dinner, and set back up in the afternoon to try to hook another tarpon. We had a few baits left and after 20 minutes we were into a big slob of a tarpon. We fought him for an hour and probably close to 150 lb fish. Great way to end the day! 1 for 5.
