Well the temperature dipped again last night down in the 60s but the water is still warm and tarpon are still here. We did not have ideal conditions this morning with a westerly stiff breeze that swung more northwest/north later in the morning. A chill was in the air. We were able to catch a couple tarpon though and make for a nice morning. After the first couple fish in the first 2 hours though things slowed down we did not have much other action. But 2 tarpon on a half day trip is always a good thing! I heard the fish bit a little later in the afternoon it got really pretty and sunny out and the wind laid down a little bit. Bait was difficult in the morning but this afternoon we went and found some big balls of them and loaded up for a few days. Looks like tonight it is going to dip down to the mid 60s again, so we will see what happens tomorrow. North winds they are calling for. Overall it should be a good thing it may slow the fish down a little which may mean a little better fishing later in the season. Happy easter everyone!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
4/19/14 Late April cold front tarpon fishing report
Well we had a minor front come in this morning. Winds were a breeze out of the west this morning then this afternoon it was honking pretty good northwest. We caught a couple tarpon in the first 2 hours on our morning trip. After that it seemed to slow down and we moved down to try some live bait spots. The live mullet were tough this morning, the commercial guys brought some down from key largo so we got a few from them. We saw plenty of fish at the bridges but they were not interested in the mullets. This evening we went back to the bridges, the tide was falling and it was ripping! Unfortunately the mullets were small and not strong enough to keep up with the current. We were able to fish a handful of stronger larger ones for a couple hours, but only had a couple of cheap shots on them. Saw a few boats hook fish, but only maybe 3 out of about a dozen boats in 2 hours. So we ran back up the road and tried my morning spot. Several boats in there… I hate seeing so many boats in some of our holes where we try to only go when we need to catch one… especially the weekend warriors! Anyways we fished it hard and had a few pickup and drops, then finally got tight on a nice 80 lb fish. We chased him through the crab trap buoys and got leader on him, but unfortunately he came unbuttoned before we could get a good picture. But a release! So 3 for the day not bad for the conditions! Looks to be northwest tomorrow and north monday though the wind speed is coming down a bit. I really hope this is the last of the cold fronts!!!
4/18/14 Evening Tarpon Fishing in Islamorada
Well I had the day off from tarpon fishing yesterday. My anglers wanted to go in the back and pull on big stuff, mud marlin and sharks. We did just that and were tight on a half dozen mudsters and another half dozen big lemons all day long. I was itching to be tarpon fishing though I heard it was going off around town that day and this morning too, but I had this morning off to take care of an oil change and routine maintenance. You also need to take a morning off here and there it’s nice not to be up at 5 AM! But we got back on it tonight and fishing was good. I had Bill from NJ out who had fished here before and was looking to land a nice tarpon. We had to look around a bit at first I tried some areas that were reportedly good this afternoon with the last of the incoming tide but the fish moved out when the tide changed I guess. We found them eventually though and the action was hot when we got there! We caught 3 out of probably 8 solid bites and several other cheap shots which was very exciting, I don’t think we went more than 5 minutes without a fish behind the boat going crazy. All on live mullet. One nice 100+ lber that we leadered but he got away before we could get him up for a boatside pic, but the others were a bit easier to handle. Fun night, looks like a front coming in tomorrow but not going to get real cold but may slow the bite down a little. Maybe it will put off all the weekend warriors!
