3/13/11 Florida Keys Tarpon action plus another big sea monster!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk had Lars, Oscar, and Antoine fishing in islamorada today.  All three are swedes who love to fish!  We caught plenty of trout, ladyfish, and jacks to bend the rod early.  Water temps were still pretty chilly in the mid 60s.  Though they wanted to catch some big stuff so we put the shark rods out.  Within 20 minutes we saw a big bust behind the boat and the BG90 bent over and started zinging line - big 130 lb tarpon!  We fought him for about 30 minutes and Lars landed his first tarpon and it was a lunker!  We fished a while longer though the tide started dying so we moved out further on the edge of the gulf.  Not much action there, one shark bite we missed, so I asked the guys what they wanted to do - bend the rod on smaller stuff or go for the big stuff.  They chose the big stuff, so we ran back to a channel where the water temp had warmed up some in the afternoon sun and put 'em out again.   Same rod bent over again and started slowly taking drag.  I could tell by the action it was something else - we fought it for about 20 minutes again and I started hand-lining it up having the feeling that it was another 'mud marlin' and sure enough it was, about 300 lbs!  We got a good look at him and then he went back to the bottom, and cut us off, but at least we saw him!  Well the guys were happy with their decision, we soon headed back after that.  Not bad for a chilly day in early March!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
305-747-6903
rick@seethefloridakeys.net