Well I had my anglers yesterday for a morning and evening 4 hour trip. We ran down to long key to fish the incoming tide in the morning. Not nearly as many fish as there had been down there but we had some action. 2 for sure solid bites and possibly another one and a few ‘cheap shots’. Unfortunately we jumped the one fish off straight away I don’t think we got the hook set good in him. The other one was a very large fish and I had taken my leader size down a bit to try to encourage a bite, but unfortunately it freyed through right away. We did catch a couple of very large jacks though. The evening trip we had more of the same bad luck. We fished near home in some of the channels. We had a pack of fish up within 30 minutes, taking multiple cheap shots at the baits and 2 solid bites again. Just not able to get a good hookset one fish jumped straight at us which was tough to hook anyways, the other got the bait off somehow. I gave it some more time we had a few more cheap shots after some time and eventually moved on. We did catch a monster barracuda, and a couple sharks. We moved back in the bay and tried a spot, after a bit of time we had double header tarpon eat both baits. I thought for sure this was our time… and again both fish were gone as fast as they showed up! Just not our day! We tried drifting mullets the last of the tide further back in the channels, but only saw a few fish roll in the distance and did not have a sniff. It’s a tough couple of days for me we’ve definitely had shots at fish just have not been able to seal the deal. Wednesday I have these anglers for a full day, we are going in the backcountry and going to try the tarpon back there. Hopefully the bad mojo is done with, I haven’t been in a slump in a while and I don’t like it!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
4/28/14 Tarpon Fishing Marathon Report
We ran down more towards marathon last night to tarpon fish. The day before fishing was good down that way. Locally the fishing has been tough lately in islamorada. Yesterday morning I snapper fished around the bridges which was good, nice big snappers and other variety. But I only saw one tarpon roll while doing that, and saw about 10 boats down there and not even a single hookup. So it’s been more productive to run south. So we did last night but fishing was tough down there too. We had a couple cheap shots and finally hooked a nice fish, but my angler made the mistake of jerking back while he jumped and he was gone quickly. Never jerk back or keep the rod high when a tarpon jumps, once the hook is set always bow to the king when he jumps. Alas that was our only shot at a fish down there, we had one more solid bite up near islamorada making a last drift at the end of the evening, but we missed him too just didn’t get the hook set. Not our night.
4/27/14 More good tarpon fishing in Islamorada
Did a full day tarpon fishing around town here today. The morning was tough we had one bite right off the bat but missed him. Tried a few spots around ch 2, ch 5, and in the bay. We had a few other cheap shots at 5 but no real connection. We did catch some monster mangrove snappers and a nice would-be legal size black grouper, but doesn’t open for a few more days :(. We ran down to long key bridge my buddy said they were biting. We caught one on the last of the incoming tide there on live bait. Then the tide switched we had a few bites on dead bait, lost one in the bridge. When the tide got really rolling we got bit up on the ocean side. Everyone in the area was having bites, we caught 2 more fish and then it was time to come home. So I think 3 for maybe 8 on the day, great tarpon fishing in islamorada in april!
