2/4/11 Florida Keys Tarpon are baaack! And a 500 lb sawfish

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Capt. Rick Stanczyk fished with his father, Capt. Richard Stanczyk Sr., and friend Capt. Dave Peck from North Carolina down here for the winter today for some florida keys fishing. We fished some channels between Islamorada and Flamingo in the morning, got a late start around 8:30, but still had some good falling tide. Caught plenty of seatrout, some ladyfish, and a couple good pompano for dinner. After hitting a few spots we moved out to hit some good tarpon holes as we had heard there were some free-jumpers spotted the day before, and we saw a couple in some deeper channels while we were running around back there. We set up about 11:00 when the tide started coming in, and boy was it fantastic! Our florida tarpon fishing trip saw 4 tarpon hooked in the air, however we were only able to get one to the boat. We even hooked one on a light rod with jig/shrimp. We also caught a couple of blacktip sharks. The prize of the day though was a 500 lb sawfish, Capt. Dave Peck had never caught one so Rick found one for him. We caught him on a tarpon rod with 80 lb mono leader and a small 4/0 hook, amazingly, he took off like a freight train then stopped dead in his tracks and hugged the bottom while we finger-tipped him up with the leader and got a good look at him. We released him unharmed as these are very rare and protected fish - true dinosaurs!!! Hopefully this is a good sign that it will be a fantastic year for our Florida Fishing Charters! See pictures at http://www.budnmarysblog.com/fishing-reportss!

Capt. Rick Stanczyk
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