Got out with Mark and his twin sons Steven and Tyler for a days fishing. I had the last few days off over the holidays but loaded up on bait yesterday afternoon to be ready for this busy week coming up. We had a mild front come in last night and it slightly chilled things down, not terribly, but I knew it might affect the good tarpon fishing we had the previous few days. It can be a very fickle thing this time of year. The water tempeatures were down to about 71, and they were around 74 a few days ago, and we had a northerly breeze in the morning. The tarpon were around though we saw a ton of fish. We gave it a good effort but did not have a bit, but we did get quite a few sharks and bluefish. We also tried a spot for snook real quick at the start but no luck with that. The tide took forever to start moving out which also didn’t help our tarpon cause. Anyways we decided to mix it up after that and had great fun with the spanish mackerel. I think we caught about 2 dozen in an hour. We also found a few triple tails later on that were good for something different. Sight casting on the buoys for triple tail is a lot of fun. We decided to try the tarpon again in the afternoon, seeing as the water had warmed up a bit more and the wind was a little more easterly. We saw plenty of fish again, but unfortunately no bites they were just not happy. The shark bite was good though we caught plenty more blacktips then called it a day. Back at it tomorrow might try some other stuff but will likely give the tarpon a shot at some point.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
