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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.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

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!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk

4/26/14 Everglades Tarpon Fishing in April

Well the sometimes you get the tarpon, sometimes the tarpon gets you.  Today fishing was tough it was northwest breeze in the morning.  Not ideal for the backcountry tarpon fishing.  Anyways we got there early and caught some nice fresh bait first thing.  Was slack tide when we got there but got rolling pretty quickly, incoming tide.  The first channel we fished was dead nothing going on.  We had caught 1 out of 2 there yesterday afternoon and a few sharks in the last hour, but today it seemed lifeless.  So we moved channels and we had a shark and then jumped a tarpon soon after.  Another 30 minutes and we jumped another tarpon, caught a big bull shark, and then the weed came.  Horrendous mats of red mangy stuff that we get on and off this time of year.  Though it was not there yesterday, but today it made it practically unfishable.  The wind had laid out by then and the tarpon were rolling, we jumped 1 more fish that we had a bite out of really quick and that was about it.  Frustrating when you know it would of been great fishing if you could keep the baits out there for more than a minute without having to reel them in to get weeds and gunk off.  Oh well tomorrow we will likely fish around town if we tarpon fish.  Today I really wanted to get away from the crowds as its a busy saturday and there were a couple tournaments going on.  I heard the fishing around town was slow though so all in all getting 3 bites back there was probably still worth the ride back, but it’s nice when you can catch them!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk