2/6/18 February backcountry fishing out of the Florida Keys

Got out with Larry and his son Joe today for a full day charter.  We mixed it up and fished for mackerels early on in the gulf.  Fishing was very good we landed a couple dozen in little over an hour.  Nice falling tide out there, a little windy but not too bad for my seacraft boat!  After that we hit the channels to try for some tarpon.  The silver king was on Larrys bucket list, though he knew they weren’t always easy to catch.  I told him our conditions looked favorable and it was worth putting some time in, so we did.  It paid off, after about 45 minutes Larry hooked a nice 110 lb tarpon!  What a fighter and he put on an acrobatic show jumping all around.  He didn’t cooperate for pictures near the boat, but we had the leader multiple times for a technical release.  We did get some nice jumping shots though with larry in them as well.  After that Larry was rewarded with another tarpon about 30 minutes later, believe it or not!  Our lucky day!  This fish was about 140 lbs, a very large size tarpon for the florida keys.  We caught him fairly quick in about 25 minutes or so.  This time we took our time a bit more with the fish on the leader, and got some good release shots for Larry to remember.  After that things slowed down we tried to get Joe a tarpon but didn’t have a bit the last hour or so of fishing, though the tide did slow down on us.  Anyways a fabulous day and nice to see some early season tarpon around.  I’ll be doing more fishing for them soon as long as the weather stays warm, so be sure to check out my other website islamoradatarpon.com

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
Instagram: @richardstanczyk
Facebook: Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

Share