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2018 Summer tarpon season in Islamorada

2K views 0 replies 1 participant last post by  syxxt9 
#1 ·
The 2018 summer tarpon season is well underway here in Islamorada, Florida Keys. Most people don't realize that the best tarpon fishing of the year happens *after* the spring/migration time. Droves of resident tarpon fill back into the channels and bays post-spawn and are very hungry looking to feed. The spawning/acting funny/disappearing nonsense is over and things settle down and fish get in very reliable, predictable patterns. It also helps that the weather is consistently stable - nice and calm. These fish aren't always the huge 100+ lbers that we get earlier in the season, but many in the 20 to 80 lb range. This year the fishing in June and so far in July has been absolutely stellar. It's been my best season to date and still going strong!

Now you do have to put some time in to run and find these fish, and leaving early in the morning helps with not only the tarpon bite but catching the proper bait as well. But back in everglades national park we've been into a ton of fish just about every day back there. Fishing should remain strong through the rest of the month. August can still be very good too at least for the first couple weeks. After that things tend to get a little spotty.... but I will say barring a hurricane or something crazy, we do still have the good conditions (warm and calm) and there are still resident fish that are here all year long.

Truth be told I'd almost rather be fishing in August or September with calm, nice conditions and have seemingly the entire bay to myself, then be here in the spring when every guide and vacationer is out on the water and the competition level is high. Also with it being off season guides such as my selves are not booked every day, so if conditions look bad on a given day and you have other days available we usually are amenable to moving things around to give you the best shot. You can usually also get good off season rates on your hotel stay, and maybe even your charter too.

As for the fishing just yesterday we landed a total of 9 tarpon out of about 13 bites. We caught two double headers which was just awesome. Not all small fish either, we had a couple in the 70 to 80 lb range, three or so in the 50 lb range, and then several in the 20-30 lb range too. In the heat of the summer though you likely will enjoy catching these size fish much more and not having to pull on some brute for an hour! Plus you get more time to catch them in the window where they are biting since the fight time is much less on average. Please check out my website for daily updated fishing reports and you can see just how good it's been.

Islamorada Tarpon Fishing

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