More tarpon action today. I had Jason and James again from yesterday. We had the last hour or so of falling tide first thing this morning. We caught bait good at first light and went out to fish. Did the same routine as yesterday since it worked well. We were in fish right away we missed one smaller fish and soon after hooked another. A 30 lber we got to the boat but then he pulled off though we had leader on him. A little later we had a nice 80 lb fish eat a surface bait and took off. We chased him for quite a ways and finally got him to the boat. Didn’t cooperate for pictures but we already had some good ones from yesterday. After that fight the tide had switched though seemed like things turned off. We fished another 40 minutes or so and did not see much of anything, no fish rolling nor other boats hooked up. So we decided to run down the road. We set up at the next spot and soon had a fish up and flash a bait, unfortunately the bait had died and the fish thought twice about eating it. A boat nearby jumped a tarpon and we fished a little while longer. Right when I was about to call it quits and move we hooked a nice 90 lb fish. We chased him down and got him to the boat. After that we caught a big cuda and had some others cut us off we so moved to the bridge. Lots of boats fishing there and we did see a few tarpon busting and rolling, though nobody hooked up. We gave it an hour or so and didn’t see much happening so we decided to cut it to a 3/4 day. Anyways 3 tarpon landed not bad though not quite as good of action as the previous day. Maybe we’re a little spoiled! There was plenty of bait around the last couple afternoons I went and stocked up afterwards. Tomorrow sounds like it may rain a little hopefully we’ll be able to get some fishing in though! 3 for 4.
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4/20/15 Spring time tarpon fishing in Islamorada stays hot
Well had a couple days off. Yesterday was a planned day off, though Saturday I had caught bait early and was waiting at the dock for my people. They never showed up! Some confusion on their end I think… oh well it was there loss, and was nice to have a couple days off. Anyways today I was back at it and fishing was pretty good. We caught bait OK and had pretty good action in the morning. Incoming tide for most of the day. Some packs of smaller fish were coming up and we finally hooked one and had another one eat at the same time though we missed him. Caught the one fish and then had some more blowing up the mullets, and a couple more bites we missed. It seemed to slow down a little so we ran down the road and caught a few baits on the way. Got down to the bridges and didn’t see too much going on so I tried another spot further away. We hooked a fish right away that drug us around for a bit. Landed him and then repeated that process two more times. Ended up landing 3 more fish, two large ones of 80 and 110 lbs. Great way to end the day. Caught some more bait on the way home as I have the same customers tomorrow, nice to be loaded for the next day! 4 for 8
4/17/15 April Tarpon Fishing in Islamorada
Fished a full day today and stayed local. The backcountry fishing seems to have slowed down a little the last couple days. We caught good bait this morning and fished the bridges. First stop the weed was so horrendous you could barely fish. Mats of sargasm weed blowing in with the wind and tide. We did have one bite even through the weed though the fish crushed the mullet and missed the hook. We left and ran back to some channels where I’d heard there had been some fish. We had action there right away. Another bite on a live bait and a few more ‘cheap shots’ that missed the baits, flashed the baits, etc… Eventually we hooked a fish up on a dead bait and caught him. After that the tide slowed. We moved around a bit and we had one other fish up that cheap shotted a bait. We moved channels and had another bite on a live bait in the next channel over though with the weak tide the fish swam towards us and we weren’t able to get a good hook set. After that we caught a little more live bait for some freshies. We ran back out and had another fish eat and as we were chasing after him he jumped and spit the hook. Tough luck! After that no more action there and we went back to the first channel we caught a fish in. Saw some rollers though the weed was bad and we couldn’t get set up where they were without the baits getting in the weed. So we tried some dead bait fishing in the bay to finish up, had some shark action and a big ray and that was it. So at least we caught one it took some hard work today. 1 for 5
