2/18/19 Fishing Charter in the Florida Keys in February

Great day with Mike, Michael, and Don! The boys wanted to get into the backcountry creeks and such, but with it being calm with the light south wind, I told them we might be better off fishing open water. We tried it early on and bugs chased us away. But we went to plan B and got into an insane mackerel bite. Had to take the chum out of the water and we were throwing bare hooks catching them as fast as we could. But lots of cut offs, thats what we call it when it’s too good. We ran back inshore and found a good load of tarpon moving through the gulf. We set up and within 20 minutes, Michael hooked a big one! We had something else on the other rod too. But stayed with the tarpon and landed him, though the other fish had run out all our line and snapped us off! I think it was just a big Ray or something. Anyways we were happy you have landed the tarpon. Got some pics and let it go. After that the tarpon didn’t seem to respond much, but we had plenty of big shark action. We ran over a monster tripletail running back inshore and landed it, probably a 14 lber. We tried a snook spot without any luck but got a bunch of nice trout. Then we had a few more minutes and stopped in a redfish hole, catching about 20 of them in 15 minutes before heading home. Back at it tomorrow!

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

Share