We had lots of action with big stuff – sharks and ‘mud marlin’ in the backcountry this morning. No tarpon back there. But this afternoon we hooked a nice 120+ lb fish near home again. Had him on for 10 minutes or so but we jumped him off. Had a pack of big jacks bite at the same time and caused a bit of chaos. Anyways tarpon action, you don’t catch ’em all!
Uncategorized
2/19/14 Afternoon Islamorada Tarpon in February
Gave it a shot for the silver kings today again. Caught mullet early this morning, a nice big mud in the bay. We had to take our time and drift patiently but eventually got a good throw and lots of baits. We tried a couple backcountry channels, did not see any tarpon rolling we did catch several sharks though. Yesterday we had fished back there as well and same thing mostly sharks and a few other large creatures. The water temperatures are a few degrees cooler there though so I think many of the fish are either shut down or have been a little flushed out of that area. Anyways we hit some of the local islamorada channels in the afternoon. Put a few dead baits out and within 30 minutes we hooked into a big 120 lb tarpon. Fought it for about 45 minutes and finally landed it. Angler Bill Levor, long time Bud n Marys customer, landed his largest fish ever a 120 lb tarpon! Unfortunately I didn’t get any boat side pics though he did. If we continue having this warm weather the tarpon should get back into swing into the backcountry and are already around town here locally, plus there are other big things to pull on back there too.
2/17/14 Half Day February Tarpon Fishing Report
I got cancelled today last minute so I went bait fishing this morning. Wind had been blowing north and was still chilly the last few days though the water temperatures were not extremly cold. This morning it was around 72 degrees. Anyways some friends came, Capt Dave and his buddy Gary. We caught lots of mullet we found in a big mud on a flat. Gary had never caught a tarpon and that was a bucket list fish for him, so I told him we would give it a couple hours. I wanted to see what was going on anyways. We set up in a channel close by the marina where there had been fish previously before the cold weather. After a half hour or so we got a bite on the dead bait, a nice 75 lb fish. We chased him and got some good jumps as you can see from the pictures and landed him in about 25 minutes or so. We tried another area and caught and released several blacktip sharks. So some shark action and a nice tarpon in a couple hours fishing with chilly water and northeast wind in february – not bad at all!
