Had Mike and his sons Bennett and Anders out today for a full day. We had bait from yesterday left over so we were in good shape. They wanted to target tarpon and their july fishing charter today. We ran right back to the channels where I’d been having luck lately. A little bit of rain around, and the tide just starting to make its way out. We hooked a nice fish and Anders fought him very well, half way through though it started to pour rain. We got good and drenched though caught our fish. We set back up and put the baits out, waiting for the rain to pass. Eventually it did, we had a little shark activity. About 45 minutes later Bennett hooked a juvenile 30 lb tarpon and also did a good job hooking it. We fought him and got him to the boat for his first tarpon ever – great job! After that a few more sharks and things seemed to quite down. We ran off the mainland and tried some areas off the beaches. A few sharks to start with, and then Bennett hooked another tarpon this time a larger 65 lb fish. He put up a good battle and we fought him for 30 minutes or so, getting several spectacular jumps and runs. Bennett got him in though and was very happy. The boys had their Go Pro camera so hopefully some good video will come out of it, I’ll try to share! That was it for tarpon for the day we had a few more sharks after that, and some big groupers dog us into the rocks, though Anders did land a small gag grouper.
Also yesterday forgot to do my report for the day. I had Mike and his son out we had a flat calm gorgeous day. They got lucky and had very good fishing too. We caught 3 tarpon first thing in the morning and jumped off another one. All within the first couple hours. After that we did some rod bending for snappers, found a little bit of small live bait, and caught half a dozen snook to finish the day. We also had some baby tarpon pop our snook baits but did not get any actual bites or hook ups out of them. 3 for 3 and 3 for 4
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
