Northwest light breeze this morning. Ran into the backcountry again. Caught a little bit of bait but it was tough and had 2 day leftovers which were still in good shape. In the backcountry we caught 3 out of 4 tarpon including a nice 100 lber. All on the incoming tide between 8:15 and 11:15. Did some other stuff after that and came home, another fantastic day tarpon fishing in islamorada. We saw some big balls of bait mullet on the way home near the docks so afterwards I went back out with a fellow captain and we loaded up on fresh mullet for the next few days. It’s nice this time of year when the big schools of mullet show up and it’s easy to load up for a few days!
3/23/14 Tarpon Fishing Islamorada in March
Another banner day today fishing was very good for our march islamorada tarpon fishing. Conditions were similar to yesterday, flat calm in the morning though a little sunnier. We used our bait from yesterday that was well iced and got right to the fishing hole. Last of the incoming tide and the action was pretty quick. We caught 3 fish in about 1.5 hours. The slack tide things slowed down and then started falling again around 10:00. Caught 2 out of 3 more for a total of 5 tarpon. The last one being a nice 100+ lber! Great fishing lots of fish in the backcountry though I think this mild front that is coming will slow things down for a few days though not blow them out entirely. We fished a 3/4 day and back in at 1:00. Time to catch bait for my night trip. Mullet were difficult especially being a busy weekend day. We found some in the creeks and had to throw about 20 times but got about 20 baits for myself and my bait catching partner. We fished the local downtown islamorada channels and bridges and fishing was better than I expected. By this evening the wind was out of the west blowing 10 knots or so, not a great tarpon condition. We had about an hour of incoming tide and jumped two fish in that time period. A good sign for florida keys tarpon fishing! When the tide started falling we moved a bit further up the channel and we caught 2 tarpon of 50 and 65 lbs. Plus a few nurse sharks and a big ray. Home by dark. Great day 7 tarpon to the boat in total hope for some more days like this soon!!!
3/22/14 March tarpon fishing in the everglades and florida keys
The tarpon season rolls on. Today was flat calm and the water had a chance to warm up a few more degrees. It was 77.5 in the backcountry where I’ve been fishing which is much better than 73. A few degrees makes a big difference in the attitude of the fish. We had falling tide all morning where I tarpon fished and we caught bait first thing a little further east where the tide was still coming in. The mullet were thick as they have been the last several days with that condition. We went 1 for 4 on tarpon within an hour and a half, also catching a couple hammer heads, black tip sharks, and big nurse sharks. By 10:00 the bite slowed up and we weren’t seeing near the number of fish rolling which that often happens that time of day. However we kept at it and we finally had another tarpon on by 11:15 or so. Good fight and multiple jumps. So 2 out of 5 tarpon overall. Both nice fish in the 80-100 lb range. We are suppose to get another minor cold front next week on wednesday. We will see what happens, may slow down the tarpon a little bit but I don’t think it will for long. Overall will probably be a good thing as we generally don’t want the fishing to get too good too early as that often leaves May and June much tougher!
