May 2017

5/11/17 May Islamorada Fishing Report

Whew time is flying by this year it’s already mid May and we are getting into our ‘summer time’ tarpon fishing.  This is by far my favorite time of year for fishing here for tarpon… when the winds calm down, the weather heats up, and the crowds leave!  Tarpon fishing can be good all the way into October, last year as a matter of fact our best months were September and October believe it or not!  Though that isn’t to be expected, June, July, and usually a good part of August are still typically very good.  Tarpon has been what I’ve been after mostly the last couple months.  Fishing has been good overall, better than last year but not the best that I’ve ever seen.  Right now the full days are where it is at, as I’m making the run into the everglades national park to fish tarpon a lot of the time.  That usually takes an hour, and sometimes one tide is better than another, so having the full 8 hours gives you the opportunity to fish both in various areas.  We are just coming off the full moon which mixed things up a little bit, especially since we had a late cold front about a week ago too.  The fish are moving around a lot, we had a banner day yesterday and made it look easy, whereas today we struggled to catch a couple fish at the very end of the day finally!  It should get more consistent though as we get away from the moon and the weather stabilizes for good.  Hopefully it’s not like last year where it was windy all through the summer… that was terrible!  So far though May has been good overall, and I only see it getting better.  June is usually one of my best overall months for tarpon fishing, and July can be close behind it.  I still have quite a few days open in July if you are looking to fish, and don’t forget about the ‘fall bait run’ we get in October…  As I said last year October was one of the best months, and nobody was here at all so you really had the fishing all to yourself.  I am still dreaming about that last year it was such a fun month to fish here…

Capt. Rick Stanczyk