Got out with Jim and is son Adam for the day today. We had a mixed bag plan again. On the way out, we found a couple big herds of mullet and caught a bunch of them! Now I had tarpon on the brain…. We checked some of the channels in the backcountry, and did see a handful. We set up, and soon had a shark on and then Adam had a tarpon bite that we missed! Unfortunately that was the last of the tarpon action, fish didn’t seem super happy with the water still on the chilly side and the south wind we had. When the tide quit, we hit a redfish hole and bailed about 30 redfish in 30 minutes, great bite! When the tide started out, we checked again for tarpon and found a couple different groups of fish, but no big schools. We tried a few places, and just couldn’t get them to respond but we did catch several more big sharks. After we’d had enough, we went and looked for tripletails. Saw quite a few of them and caught 3, but nothing real big. The boys then decided they wanted to try and catch some snook. So we bolted for the mainland creeks, and had to work around a few spots but they each caught a snook at least and missed a few other random bites. South wind was ripping on the way home, got things really muddied up. But looks like we have a minor cold front on Wednesday night that’ll get the wind back in the north and cool things down slightly. Not that the tarpon fishing is great but it’ll probably slow that down even more, just not much happening super early with them but hopefully that means it’ll be real good later in the season since they are being held off!
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
