Had a full day today and went backcountry tarpon fishing in the everglades. We had some baits from the night before and a few other older ones on good ice. We saw a few fish rolling as soon as we got back in the channels. Hooked up one fairly quick a nice 90 lb fish. The tide changed whilst fighting him and we came back to the area. We hooked another one after a little while, catching a couple sharks in between. A smaller fish that was very acrobatic! After that no more tarpon action and from what I heard it was fairly slow for most everyone else today, both in the backcountry and around islamorada. So we were very happy to catch two! Another full day tomorrow and probably more of the same!
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4/11/14 Islamorada morning and evening tarpon report
Well fished a full day and night trip tonight. Long day! We tarpon fished this morning for a few hours. Had some action at the bridges. Several ‘cheap shots’ and fish flashing on the baits. They weren’t really happy and didn’t seem to want to bite. Though after moving around a bit we finally got a couple really interested. Both at the same time – double header! We had one go immediately under the boat and to the side which we jumped off. The other one hit right about then and we chased him through the bridge about 15 times. We finally got the leader on him for a technical release, though he wasn’t ready to give up totally. We chased him some more and unfortunately he got us under part of the bridge where the boat cant go. Oh well nice fight and a catch! The bite slowed after that as did the tide, and we did some other stuff. This evening we had the last of the falling tide early and had a bite right away that we missed unfortunately. Caught a few sharks, and saw a few fish on the bottom but not many rolling. I looked around several areas and it was pretty slow most people had not much to report, just a few bites and nobody fighting fish. So we ran back up near home and tried and finally got a nice fish to stick around 7:30. A big 90 lber we fought until dark and released on a live mullet. We had to put our time in but it paid off!
4/10/14 Good local tarpon fishing in Islamorada
Well the winds were howling and the front came through the last few days. Yesterday we patch fished on the ocean side since it was nasty out. We caught plenty of fish out there and gave it a try for the last hour for tarpon. No bites unfortunately so my april catch streak is over – though this wasn’t really a full on tarpon trip since we did other stuff – but my other guide buddy did have two bites and caught them. The water temperature did not drop too dramatically locally so the fish are still around. Today they were biting well this morning. We patch fished again in the morning and then gave the last couple hours to tarpon fishing the bridges. We had action pretty quickly, jumping a fish off, having another one break us off on the bottom, a 3rd steal a mullet, and finally hooked into a nice 85 lb fish we chased through the bridge and landed. All within 45 minutes. Then I had a mid afternoon trip, not an ideal time to go tarpon fishing but some people are on a schedule. We did have good action though. Hooked a couple fish but unfortunately did not land them. One we broke off on a bridge piling and the other tried to do the same thing but we caught up with him and he went through the bridge but we pulled the hook. We had another half dozen fish flashing and chasing the baits. They were biting strangely today not a single real bust on a bait, rather they were just slurping them down or flashing them very lazily. Hopefully tomorrow is as good I’ve got a full day tarpon trip and an evening tarpon trip!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
