Well had a couple days off. Yesterday was a planned day off, though Saturday I had caught bait early and was waiting at the dock for my people. They never showed up! Some confusion on their end I think… oh well it was there loss, and was nice to have a couple days off. Anyways today I was back at it and fishing was pretty good. We caught bait OK and had pretty good action in the morning. Incoming tide for most of the day. Some packs of smaller fish were coming up and we finally hooked one and had another one eat at the same time though we missed him. Caught the one fish and then had some more blowing up the mullets, and a couple more bites we missed. It seemed to slow down a little so we ran down the road and caught a few baits on the way. Got down to the bridges and didn’t see too much going on so I tried another spot further away. We hooked a fish right away that drug us around for a bit. Landed him and then repeated that process two more times. Ended up landing 3 more fish, two large ones of 80 and 110 lbs. Great way to end the day. Caught some more bait on the way home as I have the same customers tomorrow, nice to be loaded for the next day! 4 for 8
4/17/15 April Tarpon Fishing in Islamorada
Fished a full day today and stayed local. The backcountry fishing seems to have slowed down a little the last couple days. We caught good bait this morning and fished the bridges. First stop the weed was so horrendous you could barely fish. Mats of sargasm weed blowing in with the wind and tide. We did have one bite even through the weed though the fish crushed the mullet and missed the hook. We left and ran back to some channels where I’d heard there had been some fish. We had action there right away. Another bite on a live bait and a few more ‘cheap shots’ that missed the baits, flashed the baits, etc… Eventually we hooked a fish up on a dead bait and caught him. After that the tide slowed. We moved around a bit and we had one other fish up that cheap shotted a bait. We moved channels and had another bite on a live bait in the next channel over though with the weak tide the fish swam towards us and we weren’t able to get a good hook set. After that we caught a little more live bait for some freshies. We ran back out and had another fish eat and as we were chasing after him he jumped and spit the hook. Tough luck! After that no more action there and we went back to the first channel we caught a fish in. Saw some rollers though the weed was bad and we couldn’t get set up where they were without the baits getting in the weed. So we tried some dead bait fishing in the bay to finish up, had some shark action and a big ray and that was it. So at least we caught one it took some hard work today. 1 for 5
4/16/15 April Tarpon Fishing in the Keys continues
Little slower bite today than the past few days but was still OK. Had Stewart and John. We ran into the backcountry and had some fresh caught bait from early this morning. We caught 1 fish right away on the last of the falling tide. Waiting for it to come in and had to move around a bit. Eventually had one other bite we missed and caught a big bull shark plus got bit off by a few black tips. Later we ran to the bridges and set up and the tide there was just starting to fall. A good amount of fish close to the bridge, we had a cheap shot fairly soon after getting set up. Several tarpon came up eye balling the baits but would not eat. Eventually we hooked one on a dead bait and chased him through the bridge. We got him up to the bow of the boat but then he jumped and threw the hook, so a technical release as we were to the leader. After that we ran back near home and fished the channels. Didn’t see any fish but it’s been good there. We put baits out and again hooked one on dead bait soon after. Chased him down to land 3 out of 4 tarpon for the day. I don’t have many unhappy customers, especially on a day landing 3 tarpon, though it does happen once in a while and I always try to do the best I can. I would like to discuss it for a bit. Today John had preferred reeling lefty and we had changed two rods over to left handed for him, a live bait and dead bait rod. Unfortunately none of the bites came on his rod so Stewart got to catch them all. I even offered to switch the handle on the last fish after we hooked up but he did not want to do that. Anyways I could tell he was a little discouraged at the end of the day. Some guys will tell you that you can’t make the fish bite, well occasionally that is true though we did make them bite somewhat today even though it wasn’t red hot. But you really can’t make them bite on somebody’s certain rod. There are a few things you can try to encourage that to happen, which we did, but it just did not happen. Anyways in all truthfulness, you may not be able to cast and jig all day with a rod set up with the opposite hand your use to reeling with, though if a fish is hooked and your fighting him you should be able to fight him with either hand holding the rod and the other reeling. It may be a little awkward but I know people can do it… I can do it myself and I’ve never had any issue with it really before. When tarpon fishing your generally not having to cast and retrieve a bunch – your most often sitting and waiting for a fish to take the bait. When you get into switching handles and rods etc… especially when tarpon fishing, someone may be a little sour at the end of the day because as stated you can’t make them bite on a specific rod. Anyways just some food for thought. 3 for 4
