4/16/14 Tarpon Fishing in Islamorada in April stays strong!

The april islamorada tarpon fishing bite has continued to stay strong throughout the month.  We’ve been catching fish on every trip really.  I think I only had one trip where we fished a half day due to a cold front and caught fish on the patches, only giving the tarpon a try for the last hour, where we did not hook at least one tarpon.  And only one other trip where we did not land a tarpon (we had two tarpon break us off in the bridges).  That’s great fishing!  We average probably two fish landed a trip, when you average the good ‘banner’ days where we release 3, 4, or more.  We’ve had a share of 1 fish landed trips in early april as we had a bit of a lull in the numbers of tarpon around, though the last week we’ve seen plenty more show up.  I think we had such a good early start that fish showed up strong in february and march, leading to a lull in early April which is traditionally considered ‘peak’ season.  Every year is different but like I said the last week seems to have seen big numbers around town again.  The backcountry has been a little slow with the tarpon since the last front, but they can show back up there any time again too I think when the wind stops blowing and some of the nasty ‘red weed’ that has been plaguing us back there dissipates.  Look for May to be stay strong that is often the best month of the year for tarpon and the weather stays consistently warm.  Summer can be very good too, last year July was just about as consistent as April with the early mornings being very good in the backcountry as well as good fishing around town on the evening trips with much less pressure on the fish since it is a bit slower with business and boats then.  I have some evenings available over the next couple months, just about every day is booked until June, but tarpon is what I’m doing and if your looking to catch one now is the time!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk