I had George and his buddies out for a full day in the backcountry my last trip of July. The weather was hot & very calm as has been the case for a little bit here. Early July we had a lot of wind (for that time of year) and the last week or little more it’s finally calmed down. The calm weather is generally good for fishing though you must be able to take the heat. We were able to catch pilchards on our way out which there have been a few around. They are great to have for fishing all kinds of things in the backcountry. The ones available were small but they worked for us and we caught a couple dozen snook in the morning with them, plus a redfish that got eaten by a shark. After we were done with that, we ran out in more open water and spent some time after tarpon. We saw a few tripletails floating around and George caught a nice 8 lber, keeper size and a first for him! We found tarpon and a decent number of them too. However we had to put in some work for a bite we moved 3 or 4 times and caught several large blacktip sharks. Finally we had a tarpon bite and landed a nice 40 lber! After that we gave it one more go and a few more sharks kept us busy. So all in all a great day with good variety and a backcountry slam for the boat!
August is here now and I have a good handful of days booked though a fair amount of availability especially the next two weeks. To be honest I’m not pushing it very hard as it’s super hot and I had a pretty busy year, plus with kids at home I’m busy enough. Though for anyone that wants to go fishing feel free to shoot me an email. It can be good here all through the summer and fall. Tarpon are definitely possible until it gets cold (though as stated it can definitely take some work and commitment to make it happen some days, and some days you may strike out). But if you are open to mixing it up as we did today, there are often good opportunities available. I also have Capt. Brandon running my second boat who will be available again starting mid August and he has had a stellar season so far.
Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing
YouTube: Bud n’ Mary’s Marina
