Well got back at it today had a full day and an evening trip. Fishing was tough as has been the case. Today we ran into the backcountry and caught some mullet back there first thing. We tried a few channels for tarpon, nothing in the first channel but got a couple sharks. The next channel we did see some fish though it was a little after 9 AM and the tide had just about quit. So by the time it got going good the othe way it was a little past 9:30 and that is often when it gets a bit tougher to get bites back there with those fish sometimes. Anyways we tried till about 10:15 with no action so we bent the light rods for a while with some trout. Ran further out west off the mainland and found a few tarpon out there. We caught a bunch of sharks and a cobia, though couldn’t get the tarpon to bite. I moved a few times trying to set up on them rolling, but just not interested. But we had good action with other stuff at least. Tonight was very slow, lots of jet skis, boats, and the memorial day morons out in force. Only saw a handful of fish rolling, did not see any boats hook up. We fished several spots and caught a few nurse sharks and sting rays and a big jack crevelle, but the tarpon would not cooperate. The wind picked up a nice light breeze out of the east and near sunset it looked very good, but no tarpon activity for us. Tomorrow I’m going to try to catch bait very early and run right back to where I saw tarpon today hopefully with the little bit of extra tide and earlier start we will be able to get a few bites out of them!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
5/23/14 Tarpon Fishing Report for the Upper Keys
Tarpon fished all day yesterday. The weather was gorgeous though the bite was very slow as has been the case for the week. We had a couple cheap shots early on at some of the bridges, but no bite just a big boil and flash on the bait. I fished just about every area we normally fish ‘around town’ in islamorada and even down at long key bridge for a bit. Fish were seen everywhere we went, a lot in some areas and a few in others, but they just are not very happy or feeding. We did finally jump a tarpon on a dead mullet in one of the channels near the marina, but he didn’t stay on the hook. Long day but we gave it our all and my customers as always appreciate the hard work but there is only so much you can do. I even went out late that night for a couple hours for fun with some buddies. We caught the evening falling tide but not a breath of wind and the sargasm weed was absolutely horrendous just about everywhere we fished. TONS of it all throughout the bays and channels from this weeks high winds, and with no wind now to push you along it was very difficult to set up to drift and get the baits away from the boat without getting them covered in grass. We finally found one channel where it was at least somewhat fishable, though we did not have a bite after making a couple drifts. Saturday I’m taking off my first day in 2 months, a good one to take I think with the holiday weekend craziness!
5/21/14 May Florida Keys Tarpon Fishing Report
We had our big group again of the boys across the pond from the UK. A big may islamorada tarpon fishing extravaganza! They’ve fished us the last four days and the fishing has been on the tough side. To start with we had the remnants of a very late cold front – a drop in temperature and extremely high winds of 20+ mph every day. Today the wind finally laid off a little bit, at least it was 10 mph in the morning though picked up to 15 in the afternoon. Bob and Terry were with me today they both were keen to catch a tarpon and had not done so yet on the trip. Both landed nice fish today one in the 85 lb range and the other close to 100 lb. We had to work very hard for the 2 bites we had. Never had any action on the live baits no cheap shots just nervous baits from time to time. The fish seem to definitely be put off this week it has been the toughest week tarpon fishing I’ve had all year, and usually this is when things start to stabilize and get consistent. Oh well every year is different and at least we are catching some. I think things will get better next week, this weekend will likely have a lot of crazys out with the holidays and I imagine the boat traffic will be insane. I’m taking Saturday off, my first full day off in over 2 months – I think I deserve it! Maybe i’ll go fishing!
