Well we had another late season ‘cool’ front attempting to make its way down the coast and had prefrontal conditions today.  It was fairly calm with light northerly breezes and was a tad chillier than normal with overcast skies.  But fairly nice out on the water I’ll say!  We did a bit of everything today and it all worked!  Yes sometimes those prefrontal gloomy looking days are excellent for fishing…  Patch reef fishing was very good we had some nice lane snappers among some other various reef fish groupers, other snappers, and such.  Made for a nice bag of filets for the restaurant later.  I caught live pilchards that we had too so we went and did some around town snook fishing which was also productive.  There has still been a good amount of snook locally around Islamorada which is a bit unusual as we normally catch them more in the actual backcountry, but seems they are more and more hanging in the little local spots where we catch them once in a while.  After that we went for the big boys – tarpon!  That was productive too we had a mullet out that got slammed by a big old silver king and that was the cherry on top for our day!  It’s busy season now and the tarpon are here if you are wanting to book a trip look me up.  We offer not only morning, afternoon, and full day trips, but evenings as well which is a great time to target the silver king!

This was from a couple days ago but we had a bit of a tougher trip trying to put together a catch of snappers for dinner.  Just couldn’t get much going the first couple hours.  But we did manage to get a few around the bridges as well as some jacks and various other critters for action.  A nice nurse shark which was fun for my anglers in the mangroves.  I gave it a little extra time for my people since it was a slow trip and we tried for the last hour for a tarpon.  Literally the last bait out after putting in an extra hour for them got crushed and we got a nice tarpon to the boat to finish the day!  Definitely made the trip for them and they appreciated the hard work and extra effort.  Normally we don’t lift tarpon out of the water however fish under 40 inches can be taken out for a quick picture which we did carefully.

Well we were tarpon fishing and check out this huge cubera snapper we got! He ate our chunk of tarpon bait and even on that big rod still have us a good battle. Later at the bridge we even caught a couple more! We jumped a couple tarpon as well they just didn’t wanna stay on the hook for us, but we did catch several nurse sharks. Thats the awesome thing about our florida keys tarpon fishing style with dead bait – you can get lots of cool by-catch and never really know what you might pull in!

Got a big tarpon for my angler on a half day trip. They’re showing up pretty well now and April and May is prime time. Half day trips will often suffice for local channel and bridge fishing. Morning and evening is my favorite time and sunrise and sunset is often a great time to be out there. But don’t think you can’t catch them mid day either sometimes that is the window they get happy too! Give me a shout let’s catch you a big tarpon of a lifetime fishing in Islamorada.

Got out for a half day this morning. Busy day as we’re headed back out this afternoon too for a 3/4 day. But good fun on our AM trip with some big mangrove snappers! We focused on this and got our cooler filled for a good hook & cool. Tried for tarpon for a bit too and saw a bunch. We tried feeding them pilchards and mullet but no dice. Mangrove snapper is one of the best eating fish we have and it’s fun targeting the larger ones definetly a mix of skill & luck to get the largest!

The afternoon we did some patch fishing on the reef which was very productive. Fought a huge jack for a while we popped off. But plenty to eat including some cero mackerel. Calm days let ya enjoy it all here in the Florida Keys.

Well we’re officially into March.  We had some heavy winds the last few days but yesterday and today it laid off very nice almost slick calm.  Lots of tarpon are showing up in the backcountry and will soon be making their way to Islamorada.  April and May are usually the best months for tarpon fishing and we do trips in the morning, afternoon, evening, whenever ya want!  And fishing can be good during all of it, there are a whole lot of factors that come into play but they bite at all times on different days.  Today I had Jon out for a half day trip and we had good action all throughout the trip.  We got our fill of nice size mangrove snappers for dinner which was a priority.  We put the big rods out and got a nice big ol’ nurse shark which provided some good heavy pulling.  Also a nice juvenile goliath grouper that was just beautiful.  Fun day for sure and super nice customer I look forward to him coming back!  If you wan to get out fishing give us a shout.

Well it’s been super busy guys season is definitely upon us.  Today I fished double half days which we’ve been getting a few of lately with as many people are in town.  Good action on both trips we had good snapper fishing and got several nice fish for the dinner plate in the 12+ inch range!  Some local snook still around too which are always fun to catch while you pick at snappers.  Tarpon is the name of the game though now fishing in Islamorada and we’ve had some action with them too lately.  My afternoon guy wanted to throw the fly which I don’t do a whole lot of, but we caught some cudas on fly which was a lot of fun for them coming from Germany, and even had a tarpon eat the fly but we didn’t come tight unfortunately.  But still lots of fun for the guys.  Book a trip today you can call the marina office at 305-664-2461 and ask for Capt. Trentin!

Got out fishing for fun with Capt. Rick Stanczyk.  He was showing me a few things about tarpon fishing locally around Islamorada a few tips and tricks.  We found a bunch of mullet and were able to catch a couple dozen to fish with.  We drove through some of the various channels and saw a couple tarpon in a couple spots.  Decided to set up in one area and sure enough after about 15 minutes we hooked a nice 50 lber that we landed!  Beautiful fish on a gorgeous day!  We checked out some of the bigger bridges further south and fished a little bit more without much luck but we did find one other area that had a good load of tarpon laying on the bottom so promising to see.  As long as things stay warm you should have some good shots at tarpon here for the next few months!

A little fun from a few weeks ago when Capt. Trentin went out with a good buddy of his and took barry along who films for the Bud n’ Mary’s YouTube channel!  Check it out.

Well we had quite a bit of wind the last few days as I’ve mentioned but today things took a turn and got much nicer.  Winds dropped down to 10 mph southeasterly and it’s really feeling like Spring again and not winter so much.  When the winds calm down that of course gives us a lot more fishing options such as the patch reefs and more open water areas.  Today I was able to mix things up with my anglers we fished the patches for a bit and though it was a little slow to start we got on to one spot where the action was hot & heavy!  We loaded up on lane snappers so we got plenty of dinner fish which was the main objective.  After that we hit the bayside and found a variety of rod benders jacks, a few mackerel, and a nice pompano!  We also had time to jump in a protected creek area and pulled out a few more mangrove snappers and a nice snook.  All in just a half day of fishing!  Not that every day is like this but just goes to show you the variety you can get here in the Florida Keys.