Got out with Aaron down from DC today with his dad who flew over from the west coast. Tarpon were on the agenda but they also wanted some dinner and little variety as well. We tried for tarpon in the morning, got out a little early at 6 to catch the last of the tide locally. It proved to be a good bet we had two tarpon bites but unfortunately they didn’t stay on the hook for us. We ran into the backcountry after that and didn’t do much with tarpon back there, saw a couple rollers. The sharks were not even biting really, we caught a lemon shark in the second spot and a sting ray in the first, but no other blacktips or anything. After that we switched gears and caught plenty of trout and ladyfish, though none big enough for dinner. So for the last hour we caught some mangrove snappers, and did get some nice size ones about 8 or so enough for a couple good dinners for the boys. Tomorrow we’re out again and I think we’ll focus more on tarpon throughout the day. If it’s still windy will likely stick it out around town as that’s been a bit better than in the backcountry for tarpon with the hard south winds. Looks like this weekend we are getting slammed with a late cold front, might slow things down for a few days. 0 for 2
4/2/17 April Tarpon Fishing Islamorada
Well got back on the hot fishing again today thankfully. The winds laid out nicely yesterday. Yesterday I just had a half day of trout fishing which was good. Today I had John and his son Jake down from Idaho. They have a gold mine there. Today we didn’t find any gold, but we did find a bunch of silver! I caught some bait early on as it was flat calm so figured it might be tough doing that once the sun was up. We headed into the backcountry and caught the very start of the falling tide. Fish were everywhere free jumping, it was nice to see after being back there a few days ago with the wind howling and not seeing much at all. We got right to it and proceed to catch six tarpon in a row! They all stayed on the hook until we got the leader, and got several boat side pics with a few of them. By noon we were pretty much done, we had a couple more bites we missed (averages had to catch up with us at some point!). We finished the day catching a few trout and ladyfish, and reloaded on mullet on the way home for the next few days. The wind did pick up a little when we were finishing up with the tarpon, but not too bad. Tomorrow it looks to be blowing a little more but shouldn’t be too crazy, and then nice the rest of the week until Friday. Another cold front suppose to his us that night, so that may mess the fishing up again for a few days but hopefully it’ll fizzle out! 6 for 8
3/31/17 March Tarpon Fishing Islamorada
Well I must’ve jinxed myself a few days ago when I said fishing was just starting to get good… The last couple days out have been tough! Today we ran into the backcountry and the winds were cranking out of the south about 20 mph… My clients were not die hard for tarpon so I figured going out back would give us some other options as well. We found a few tarpon in the first channel we fished, but they didn’t want to bite. We tried for a while and moved a few times, never even had a shark bite! We did end up catching a small cobia though at least. We ran further back where there had been tons of tarpon last week, but didn’t see much at all out there. We did end up catching a couple blacktip sharks though. We then bent the light rods for a while, caught plenty of trout and ladyfish, and a few for dinner. We tried for tarpon again near home for the last hour, again saw a few fish but no bite. I heard a few guys that stuck it out all day fishing around town did have a handful of bites, but the general consensus was you were lucky to get a couple shots for four, five, or six hours of fishing! Anyways the winds are suppose to die down tonight, hopefully the water will clean back up and the fish will get happier. I don’t know if I’m tarpon fishing tomorrow, but we’ll see! 0 for 0
