3/28/15 Late March Backcountry Fishing Report

Well the calm winds and stellar conditions couldn't last forever.  We had a cold front come in last night and tonight it is suppose to get down in the low 60s.  Yesterday the wind blew hard southwest, today it was 20-25 out of the north for most the morning.  Fishing yesterday was still very good.  Capt. Skip Nielsen, Capt. Jeff Beeler, and Capt. Rick Stanczyk all had great live bait tarpon fishing yesterday at the bridges.  They all reported multiple fish landed and constant action with the live mullets getting blown up by tarpon of all sizes.  Capt. Bill Bassett had a good day in the backcountry yesterday too landing multiple fish, today however he said it slowed down a bit back there with the hard north wind and slight temperature drop.  Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished around town today and they had good action on the patches with porgy and a few nice hogfish, plus some giant bar jacks that were in the 10 lb range, plus a nice tarpon and couple sharks to finish.  Capt. Jeff Beeler had several tarpon bites and landed a nice 150 lb fish close to home plus several sharks today.  A few days ago Capt. Jim Willcox had a banner day in the gulf landing double digit permit, plus cobia, tripletail, goliath grouper, and more.  Capt. Rick had a nice 20 lb permit caught on a live crab off a wreck too.  Capt. John Johansen had good tarpon and shark fishing in the backcountry for a few days and good live bait fishing for tarpon in Islamorada.  Capt. Perry Scuderi had a day and night trip a few days ago, landing a nice tarpon on each trip.  Capt. Mike Venezia has had solid tarpon action fishing the local channels as well.  Capt. Mike Bassett said they had good action at the bridges a few days ago with tarpon as well.  This cold may slow them down for a few days, however hopefully the water temperature won't drop too much as to push them out.  As we enter April that is usually prime time for live mullet fishing for tarpon.

Capt. Rick Stanczyk