Got out with Rich, Leo, and Walt today for a half day. We caught some bait early there was plenty of bait around and also we found more on our way home. The tarpon bit fairly well for us we didn’t have to move except to fight some fish. We had incoming tide all morning. The tarpon were eating the live mullet! We had 5 bites and hooked 4 fish. We landed 2 and the other 2 we had on for a few minutes but both threw the hooks while jumping. It was good action and was glad to catch a couple. Have the same crew tomorrow and I think we are going to go into the backcountry and try back there if the winds lay down like they are suppose to. 2 for 5
4/24/17 Florida Keys Tarpon Fishing in April
Got out with Michael and Brian today. Michael is a writer for the Wichita Eagle, the largest newspaper in the Kansas City area. He said he’d be doing a little write up about his experience today so I was hoping fishing would be good! We had a minor front hit us last night, winds swung around to the northwest, not hard but a steady 10-15 mph. We went a little early and hooked a nice tarpon a little after 7 which Michael fought for about an hour! We got him boatside several times on the leader, but he just wouldn’t roll over or cooperate for pictures. Michael didn’t want to over stress him so we ended up popping him off. After that we went to another area and had plenty of shark action, bonnet heads, nurses, and atlantic sharp nose, and finally had a tarpon eat a live mullet which Brian caught! This one wasn’t quite as big maybe 60 lbs, and we landed him in 15 minutes and he was more cooperative for pictures thankfully. After that we went and caught some dinner for the girls who didn’t get to come fishing, some nice mangrove snappers. We finished up in the channels and caught the start of the falling tide. Found some tarpon there too we had one eat a live mullet but didn’t get the hooks in him unfortunately, but ended up getting a big nurse shark on the bottom. All in all a fine day I was glad the fish cooperated a bit. Looks like some more west wind tomorrow then it should be swinging back to a more normal east and hopefully not blowing as hard as it was the last few weeks! 2 for 3
4/23/17 April Tarpon Fishing Morning Half Day Florida Keys
Got out with Darrel again for our last morning trip. He had to catch an earlier flight than he thought, so we went extra early and fished 5:30 to 9:30. Thought the rain might foil our plans, but it stopped raining around 5 AM and really turned out to be the nicest morning we’ve had in 3 weeks or so! The winds laid down around 8:30 or so to 10 mph and it got very nice and hardly anybody was out. We had a tarpon bite early we landed in one of the local channels. After that we didn’t have much else so we went down to the bridges. We ended up getting a couple bites there in the last hour, we jumped one off and Darrel had the other one on for a minute though he ended up throwing the hook too. Anyways we were happy to get one. Looks like we have a late weak cold front hitting us the next few nights, suppose to get in the high 60s tuesday evening though the winds are very light out of the northwest the next couple days. Hopefully won’t mess up the fishing… who knows it may make it good! Got a full day tomorrow, debating whether to stay around town or venture out back if it gets real nice. We’ll see! 1 for 3
