Got out with Brian and Trevor today. We did a mixed bag trip and gave tarpon a try for part of the day. We caught some mullet in the muds on the way out, so had plenty of good fresh bait. Mackerels were good in the morning. We tried the backcountry channels later on for sharks/tarpon. Not much activity back there though again today, yesterday it was slow too. I did mark a few fish that I’m pretty sure were tarpon, but no bites just a couple small blacktips and a big nurse shark. We then did some more light tackle stuff and caught some trout. Finished up near home again in the channel where we caught one yesterday. We hit it right at the tide change and I thought once the tide got going, we’d for sure get a shot. But again no bites, we hooked a big sting ray that cut us off and that was it. I did see some fish roll and several on the bottom too… None of the 4 boats there got a bite. Anyways we gave it a good hard shot, hopefully it’ll be better tomorrow! 0 for 0
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2/28/17 February Islamorada Tarpon Fishing Report
Got out with Brian and Bob today and tarpon was on their bucket list. We caught some mullet early on I hadn’t been using them much but I figured it’s getting close to that time. We were able to find a mud after a little looking around. After a few empty throws we caught about 2 dozen. We tried the backcountry channels in the AM and not much going on back there. The sharks weren’t even really biting! We moved around a bit and with all the wind and mud didn’t see a whole lot except for 1 tarpon roll. But after over an hour we hadn’t had a bite just one little shark so we moved on. The next channel we caught another couple sharks and that was it, no signs of tarpon life. We decided to bend the light rods a little for an hour or so, and did catch some nice trout. We then ran back towards Islamorada to give the local channels a try which I haven’t really fished yet this year. We set up and after about 25 minutes or so, Brian hooked a great 80 lb tarpon! He jumped a few times and then we landed him after a 20 minute battle. I didn’t see any other fish rolling but did see a few on the bottom machine, so hopefully they’ll stick around. We may be giving it a try again tomorrow! 1 for 1
2/25/17 More February Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
Got out with Jim, Jeff, and Ryan today and tarpon was on their list of fish to try and catch. I knew the water was still a little chilly but with it being fairly calm and on a warming trend told them we’d probably have a shot. Anyways we fished for the spanish mackerels first and that was pretty good fishing considering we had almost no wind. After that we looked out around the channels where we had caught our big fish yesterday. I gave it a good hard look, hoping to spot either some rolling fish or possibly mark some packs on the bottom. But we saw nothing and we checked a couple different areas. I knew the tide would soon be turning so I decided to run further to check off some of the mainland areas where we had found some big schools of tarpon just before the last front. We got out there but didn’t see any signs of life… So we ended up running back to where we had been before, hoping some fish might move in with the incoming tide starting. Luckily that happened we started seeing a handful of fish roll and started catching quite a few blacktip sharks. We hooked into a few big sawfish too but they were too big for us to get up before they cut us off. We moved around a bit trying to entice a tarpon bite but to no avail. Finally I decided to run further up the channel to take a look and we started seeing quite a few more tarpon. We had about an hour left to fish, and we were able to get a few bites out of the tarpon. Unfortunately they didn’t want to stay on the hook, we jumped a couple off straight away, and then had what I’m pretty sure was on just take the line and zip us for a couple seconds. These did appear to be smaller 40 to 60 lb fish, which have been giving us a little more trouble hooking lately versus the big 100+ lb fish. That was about all she wrote, hate not catching one but it happens sometimes! At least we had some good action and 3 bites isn’t bad this time of year. Have double half days the next two days, so probably won’t be doing much tarpon fishing, but maybe next week. 0 for 3
