3/24/13 Florida Keys Spring Fishing for Monsters!

Spring, especially march florida keys fishing, is known for big monster fish here in Islamorada.  While the cooler weather earlier this month had shut many of these brutes down, they've still been around and lately have been caught frequently.  Tarpon, sharks, goliath grouper, and 'mud marlin.'  Today Capt. Rick Stanczyk had guests out for a full day islamorada fishing charter.  The winds were howling from the southwest 25 knots, not an easy fishing condition.  However we made our way into the backcountry fairly comfortably without taking too much spray.  We fished for trout, ladyfish, and mangrove snappers in the bay early.  The fishing was surprisngly good with several nice keeper size trout to 20 inches, and lots of ladyfish for bait and a handful of snappers.  Later we went to the deeper channels, the water was not too pretty lots of grass and mud, though we ran up inside and found some areas that looked fishable with hints of blue in the water.  We put the big rods out with dead ladyfish on the bottom, and soon were hooking up sharks in the florida keys.  Mostly blacktips and black noses.  To our surprise after our 3rd or 4th shark, all of a sudden the rod bent over and a big tarpon came flying out of the water!  We kept a light drag to start as I had extra weight on to hold bottom with the weed, wind, and current, and often tarpon can throw hooks especially with a weighted line when they jump.   Luckily the hook was in the right place, he jumped several times and we eventually landed him - a nice 100 lb fish!  Soon the red weed flowed in which made the area unfishable, so we ran to some other channels to fish the last hour.  Had a few more shark bites including one big one we pulled off though caught a couple blacktips and called it a day.  Not bad given the conditions!  Capt. Ted Wilson had some good action with ladyfish and trout, and also reported catching 3 'mud marlin' close to Islamorada.  Capt. Bill Bassett had a half day and caught some nice mangrove snappers hiding around the mangrove islands.  Islamorada tarpon fishing in march is likely going to be stalling again a little bit - we are getting more cold weather the next few nights.  Though not freezing it is suppose to get in the 50s several nights which will likely bring the water temperatures down, I don't think the tarpon will leave though may be tough to get to feed until water temperatures get back to the low/mid 70s.  Also included here is a picture of a 400+ lb goliath grouper caught by young angler Sam last week fishing with Capt. Rick Stanczyk!