Well we were after sharks today in the backcountry of Islamorada. A gorgeous november day light winds and cool weather. We caught some mullet on the way to the backcountry and set up in some channels. We were able to bend the light rods while waiting, and stock up on a few more ladyfish. We caught a nice black tip while sitting there, and then hooked a nice 50 lb tarpon. Several jumps later and a few good runs, we landed the fish. Later on we moved to a different area. Tide still falling hard. Some big muds kicked up and we had some more shark activity, this time big lemon shark and some other blacktips. We saw a tarpon bust and moved over in that area, though did not get a bite out of them. Last part of the day we tried another skinny channel and had a big blacktip at first, then right after hooked a smaller 20 lb fish. We jumped him off near the boat though, and almost immediately after the other rod went off and a tarpon spit the bait right away. We finished the day with some nice size trout. Not bad as I said in my previous post, not doing tarpon fishing by default anymore, but when the conditions are right there are still shots at catching them. That usually means calm, warm weather!
End of ‘tarpon season’
Figured I would announce the unofficial end of my ‘tarpon season.’ Tarpon of course can be caught all year long here in Islamorada, Florida. However November through January is the least likely time due to the colder water temperatures and lack of numbers of fish. Basically I don’t book tarpon trips in advance during this time but I am fishing for plenty of other things such as snook, redfish, drum, mackerel, cobia, porgies, hogfish, snapper, grouper, sharks, and more! Now as I said it is still possible to catch them, and if we get a string of 85 degree days and the water temperatures get in the high 70s, some of the local resident tarpon can get happy and you can have shots at catching them. However with the likelihood of cold fronts and inconsistency of the fishing, I really only target tarpon when the opportunities seem to present themselves, or I hear through my network of fishing buddies that they’ve seen or caught them. So I won’t be doing a lot of fishing for tarpon or updating the site much for the next few months. You can keep up with my other fishing by reading my other fishing report blog, fishingislamorada.com. I don’t update it as often as this, but I try to a couple times a month. Of course I am still available for charter for plenty of other things, fall and winter is a fabulous time to fish here and we have lots of other great fishing going on aside from tarpon. Drop me a line if your interested, and of course contact me if your looking to book a tarpon trip in 2015. We usually start fishing for them again in February, though the best time is April thru August.
10/27/14 East Cape Sable Tarpon Fishing in October
Had a full day tarpon trip today. My angler really wanted to catch one even though he knew it wasn’t ‘season’. I told him there is always a shot at catching one here in islamorada as long as the weather is warm. We had recently had a cold front that dipped the temperatures in the backcountry. We saw a lot of bait around though not much activity from tarpon, usually with the ‘fall mullet run’ that was happening you often see tarpon busting them frequently. We fished in the morning around flamingo, saw a couple busting fish, but only had shark bites. I went out towards cape sable, we did not see much life in the canal. At the middle cape end there was plenty of bait, but no tarpon activity. I fished there for a bit without much of anything. So we ran down the beach and saw the big balls of black mullet pouring out with the tide. We did finally see some tarpon busting them, set up but only more shark bites. Finally the last spot we fished we had more sharks, and finally the last bait in the box we put out and hooked a big 120 lb tarpon. After a good fight we got the technical leader release before he popped off. As long as it stays fairly warm there should be some tarpon back there, but this is the last little window that you can expect to find them.
