Well I’m back as of a week or so ago and have had a couple chances to get out on the water the last week. Also wanted to give an update on the overall fishing for earlier July while I was out of town. So firstly end of June and early July sounded like it was fairly good fishing. I know before I left we had found some good tarpon in the backcountry and had a good day back there. Capt. Steve has been fishing a lot back there and he said the remainder of June and the first couple weeks of July were overall really good. Multiple tarpon landed many days and decent snook and other things to pick at as well. The bait was also pretty consistent as far as finding it. Capt. Luke has also been doing well hes fished a few more half days and evening trips for local fish and that was pretty good for him too with several days of landing multiple fish. However the last week or two of July here now has been a little more up & down with the tarpon. I fished a couple days this past week with Matt and Sammy and Tuesday we had some bad weather early in the morning with a pretty stiff southwest breeze. We weren’t sure what it was going to do but we slowly ventured out to some closer areas in the backcountry. We did find some bait which was helpful. But didn’t see a whole lot of tarpon where we first stopped. We eventually went further where I originally wanted to go and did find a few fish in a couple different areas. But nobody really showing on the surface and we covered quite a bit of ground. The ones we did see on the sonar or few we saw jumping did not really respond. We did catch a few sharks though including a big hammerhead which was cool! Capt. Steve said he did end up getting a couple bites that day in similar areas we were fishing. I did get out again Thursday with Matt and Sammy and we were able to leave early at 6 and the winds while still southwest were considerably calmer. We ended up getting into tarpon pretty good in a couple of the same areas we fished on Tuesday. Our 2nd stop we caught 4 tarpon in about an hour it was just as good as you could hope for! Then we checked another area and we marked quite a few there too. The bite wasn’t as hot but we did catch one more and jumped another one off. So overall banner day with 5 tarpon landed there but just goes to show how different it can be from one day to the next. We also caught a bunch of finger mullet in the creeks after that and had some good snook fishing with a few goliath groupers and nice redfish mixed in. So was very glad I could put those guys on a banner day of fishing after having somewhat of a struggle on Tuesday but that’s how fishing goes. So as far as August goes I would say there can be good fishing to be had but it’s likely going to be a bit hit & miss. I would likely say a lot of days it may be wise to leave your options open as far as for what to target. It is definitely possible though things improve as we get closer to September and October and away from this full moon. Good news is as mentioned the bait is fairly consistent and that is often a tougher thing to get this time of year. Also if you’re looking for a half day Capt. Luke is willing to do some evening trips still. That fishing too is a little more hit & miss but he’s had better luck on the falling tides. They did catch a tarpon on each of his last morning half days too. So it’s still possible to catch ’em but may or may not be very good but we’ll definitely give you the best opportunity we can.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
