by Greg Poland
The fishing in and around the Islamorada area has been great in spite of the rain storms of the last few weeks the Tarpon bite has been great, we have mostly been fishing live bait at the local bridges, but I have had a few clients out fly fishing as well. My new Contender 25 bay boat is on the water and the first fishing charter was a success with a big tarpon that ran us in and out of the bridge pilings for 10 min before heading out into the backcountry, I had a chance to take it offshore for some Mahi Mahi action as well and we were able to catch a few schoolies but friends who were in the same area had some great action with larger fish that made me jealous.
If you are looking to catch a silver king this season you should get out to the bridges on a falling tide and put a live pilchard or mullet under a cork, if I had only one last fish to catch it would be a tarpon so this is by far my favorite time of year. If you are more interested in something for the table the snapper bite has been great weather you are fishing in the backcountry under the mangroves or out on the patches the bite has been on. On my boat when we are going for big snappers we have 20-30lb fluorocarbon on a 20ft leader with a circle hook or a jighead and a live pilchard, I like to use beaded line with a long leader and chum heavy. If you have a full live well then start live chumming, “I like to say it’s like handing out business cards” if you let the fish know you are there and get them eating then you can start free lining a pilchard back in the chum slick and hold on.
Here are a few photos from some recent trips, if you can get away for a day give me a shout I would love to get you out on the new boat.
Capt. Greg Poland
305.393.3327 | gregpoland.com
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