Well I’ve been more or less in full on tarpon mode with it being so warm so early down here. Haven’t been updating this blog as much but my daily reports during tarpon season are on my other website islamoradatarpon.com. The fishing has been a little up and down the last couple weeks. We had a lot of wind earlier in the week, and out of the southerly direction a few days, which did make fishing a bit tough. The tarpon bite was hit or miss and a lot of fish got moved around. We were inundated with nasty muddy water in some of the backcountry areas that had been holding fish consistently. Even the sharks were a little hard to come by some days. We did find a few local tarpon a couple days though. I also mixed it up and did some mackerel fishing in the gulf which was still pretty good considering how warm it’s been. There had also been some trout and snappers in the bay which made for some good tablefare. Today though we were rewarded for making a long run. It was a gamble… a 50 mile run back into the ‘glades. We found the mother load of tarpon though and some nice clean water after running through miles and miles of mud and nastiness. The tarpon were hungry too… My anglers Irv landed three huge tarpon, up to 150 lbs. Though the biggest fish may of been closer to 175 I am often conservative in my estimates! It was a day to remember and we also caught a few tripletail on the way home before things got too rough. Anyways looks like we will be having a cold front come in over the weekend so things may cool off for a few days. It might slow the tarpon down again, but I think overall its a good thing as its been so incredibly warm. If you are looking to get out fishing give me a shout I have a few days in March still available, and then the summer time tarpon bite can be very good as well and doesn’t book up quite as fast as april/may which is already heavily booked. Tight lines!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
