People who complain that South Florida doesn’t enjoy a change of seasons don’t fish the annual fall mullet run.

To anglers from Stuart to Key Largo, nothing signals that fall has arrived like the migration of these baitfish. Silver and black mullet move south in enormous schools along the Atlantic coast, all the while dodging a host of predators such as snook, tarpon, jacks, sharks, Spanish mackerel and bluefish. October marks the prime time to fish the mullet run, both offshore and inshore.

The Live-Bait Game Plan

Anglers never know what they might catch from one cast to the next. They don’t even need live mullet to catch the gamefish species. Half a mullet, topwater plugs, spoons, and soft-plastic bait imitations can be as effective if not more.

Capt. Chris Murray, of Stuart, usually nets several dozen mullet wherever he sees the baitfish pushing water. After catching bait, he cruises around until he spots another mullet school. Then he closely watches to see what the baitfish are doing and what’s feeding on them.

Tarpon often jump completely out of the water, then come crashing back into the middle of the school. Snook hang below the school and suck in mullet with an audible pop. Jacks charge into the school and send mullet flying.

Murray likes to fish live mullet on a 7-foot, light- to medium-action spinning rod with a 4000-size reel spooled with 20-pound braided line. He usually attaches a 40-pound fluorocarbon leader with a 3/0 circle hook and clips an indicator float to the leader, which allows him and his anglers to keep track of the bait.

“I vary my leaders. I like to actually start lighter,” Murray says. “Normally I rig up two that are 25-pound, two that are 30, two that are 40. When I know what kind of fish are there and what kind of heat I have to put on them, normally 40. If they’re short snook, 25 or 30 is fine.”

When drifting or slow-trolling, he hooks a mullet through the upper lip and casts it to the edge of a submerged oyster bar, which snook, tarpon and other species use as ambush spots. Murray then opens the bail of the reel and slowly lets out line.

Jacks Are Wild

On one trip I took in the St. Lucie River with Murray and Anthony Javarone, we cast out, and moments later I felt my mullet get very nervous. Suddenly violent splashes erupted, and whatever had scared my mullet nailed Javarone’s bait.

Following Murray’s instruction to let the fish swim for a few seconds before closing the bail and reeling tight, Javarone hooked up to what turned out to be a 15-pound jack. The fish took Javarone from one end of Murray’s bay boat to the other before it finally tired.

“Those big jacks are great practice for people who want snook and tarpon,” Murray says. “They’re a guide’s best friend. They just give you every chance to develop your rhythm.”

When jacks, tarpon and Spanish mackerel successfully raid the schools for a meal, they often stun and maim a few of the baits, which fall to the sea floor. That’s when fishing a mullet head on the bottom can be extremely effective.

Snook on Artificials

Fishing around the rocks at the mouth of Stuart’s St. Lucie Inlet, Capt. Greg Snyder uses a D.O.A. plastic shrimp to catch all sizes of snook. He fishes the shrimp on a spinning outfit with 30-pound braided line and a 40-pound fluorocarbon leader.

“They use the rocks as a trap,” Snyder says of the snook. “The bait hits the rocks and gets confused, and the snook take advantage of it.”

Let the shrimp drift with the current and be aware of any taps or hesitation in the drift, because that means a snook has taken the lure. “Let the tide do the work, and keep in contact with the shrimp,” he says, “because you need to be able to set the hook when they eat.”

Why would a snook eat a shrimp when mullet are abundant? I posed that question to D.O.A. luremaker Mark Nichols. “During the first of the mullet run, the fish are all over the mullet,” he says. “But after three weeks of eating mullet, they’re ready for something different.”

I witnessed that fishing with Nichols in the north fork of the St. Lucie River on the last half of a falling tide. His flats skiff was surrounded by mullet and rolling tarpon, but after we threw some D.O.A. soft-plastic mullet imitations such as a Bait Buster and a TerrorEyz without a bite, Nichols switched us to D.O.A. glow shrimp.

Standing at the front of the boat, we waited until a tarpon rolled within casting distance. Then we cast the shrimp just ahead of the tarpon. Instead of steadily twitching the shrimp back to the boat, Nichols advises working it slowly.

“You want the shrimp to go down,” he says. “Then snap the rod and jerk the shrimp sharply, but don’t crank the reel and move the shrimp away. You want it to stay right where the fish was.”

Picture it in these terms: Here’s a shrimp, slowly sinking in the water. Suddenly it jumps up, then sinks right back down. The next time it jumps, thinking it might get away, the tarpon eats it. Using that technique, Nichols and I enjoyed about two dozen tarpon bites.

“I think it’s just easy for them to eat a shrimp,” he says. “They have to work hard to catch a mullet. It doesn’t take anything for them to catch a shrimp.”

Read Next: Mesmerizing Drone Video Shows Tarpon Attacking Mullet

Two other advantages of fishing an artificial shrimp around a mullet school: Bait stealers don’t peck at a plastic shrimp like they do a live shrimp, and Nichols can fish his shrimp exactly how he wants.

To make a D.O.A. shrimp more appealing to a fish keying on a school of mullet, Nichols fishes it below the school or on the edge of the school. That makes the shrimp look vulnerable, which makes it an easy target.

“If you’re not catching fish with a shrimp, you’re fishing it too fast,” Nichols says. “No matter how slowly you think you’re fishing it, fish it slower.”

The post Fishing Florida’s Fall Mullet Run appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Even as Capt. Lori Hall wrapped the anchor line around a cleat, I cast across a canal a short run from the boat ramp at Simmons Park in Ruskin, Florida. As my Yo-Zuri 3D inshore twitchbait touched down about a foot from the grassy bank, in inches-deep water, I quickly began a jerk-pause retrieve to keep it off the bottom. About three jerks into it, something smashed the lure, and a small snook sailed out of the water. Hardly a trophy, but still, a pretty nice payoff for the first cast of that fall day.

Hall, who runs Ladyfish Charters in Tampa Bay, fishes from Apollo Beach to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. She had promised we’d find willing snook on the low flood tide, and so we did. That was our main quarry of the morning, and we caught a bunch. The twitchbait proved a hot ticket for quite a few snook—and many missed strikes—while live pilchards (more properly known as scaled sardines) also accounted for plenty of action. Hall’s generous live chumming near the boat certainly didn’t hurt.

Fishing Spots in Tampa Bay

A bit farther south from where we fished is the Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve, also a great spot for snook. I’ve fished there successfully with angler Jose Chavez, a fishing industry vet, where we caught snook in the virtually hidden openings of creeks and bays.

“That’s one of my favorite areas to fish,” agrees retired guide Capt. Ray Markham, out of St. Petersburg. “The habitat in Terra Ceia has been relatively untouched by development and the encroachment of people, with lush mangroves and oyster bars in the clean water,” Markham says.

With winds light, we switched during the afternoon from fishing mangrove-rimmed bays and canals to drifting grass flats in the open bay in 3 or 4 feet of water. The turtle grass offered a welcome change from many areas of the beleaguered Indian River Lagoon on the east side of the state that I was used to. When it comes to water quality and habitat, Tampa Bay has really cleaned up its act over the past. But Tampa Bay waters do face new water quality issues, as do many parts of Florida.

Over a couple of days, we fished only a small ­portion of Tampa Bay; I felt we could have spent many days doing so and not have begun to explore even that limited area. In fact, Tampa Bay is Florida’s largest open-water estuary, covering more than 400 square miles. The main shipping channel is a busy place, since Tampa is one of the 10 largest ports in the nation. Fortunately, we remained far from that sort of traffic.

Tarpon Fishing Tampa Bay

The high flooding tide meant good conditions, and while Hall often finds redfish ­readily available over these flats, we didn’t locate them that afternoon. But from her high vantage point standing at the Blue Wave’s second station, Hall did spot a big bonnethead shark cruising the ­shallows, in its typical zigzag fashion, just off the bow.

“Bonnethead, 10 o’clock!” she called out, and my daughter, Rachel, visiting from Virginia, dropped a pilchard just ahead of the fish, about 40 feet out. It looked like the shark would pass nearby but keep moving on when it suddenly turned 90 degrees and pounced on its newfound prize. The circle hook bit where it was supposed to, and the fish offered a real test for a tiny Daiwa with 10-pound braid and St. Croix Legend XTreme Inshore rod, making repeated runs around the boat.

Chavez focuses much of his attention on snook in the lower bay, particularly during outgoing tides, when he works mangrove points, oyster bars, docks and potholes. “Snook basically set up on prime ambush points where there’s a good current,” he says. Find places where water has to funnel through a choke point on an ebb tide, and “you can expect snook to be there waiting for an easy meal.”

Read Next: Tarpon Fishing Tips

As much fun as snook are, Hall—who has been fishing Tampa Bay since the mid-’80s—cites tarpon as her favorite of all the bay’s many gamefish species. And she’s caught some monsters, including “the greatest catch of my life, a 214-pound tarpon.” Once in a while, Murphy takes a nap, as on that day when ESPN happened to be on board filming a show and caught it all.

For tarpon, Markham’s a summertime guy. While even then it can be hit or miss, the action can also be “insane—especially when you see pods of fish coming right at the boat,” he says. “Big-game fishing in the shallows.” Then, he focuses on days around new and full moons when big tides flush crabs and shrimp out of the bays. Similarly, Chavez likes May and June for tarpon, when they might move in by the thousands, he says.

Fishing All Year Long in Tampa Bay

And while Markham is also a snook devotee, he says: “In the fall, I love fishing reds. They can be big and, like bulldogs, they just don’t give up. When the water temperature in the bay drops to between 72 and 78 degrees, with oxygen levels strong, that’s prime topwater time.”

Of course, jacks of various sizes patrol the bay, and when they’re on the attack, can be a blast. They gave us some good battles on our second day out with Hall. Somewhat less likely, a nice flounder surprised one angler. Not many Tampa Bay fishermen target flounder, mostly catching them incidentally, but they’re here. “Find good sand-and-shell or grassy habitat with channels and potholes in moving water, and you’re likely to find flounder much of the year,” Markham says.

With so much variety when it comes to ­gamefish species, the bay offers worthwhile action in all seasons. Chavez does indeed fish it year-round but says winter’s his preferred season. That’s when he really likes fishing the negative low tides, “especially during the start of the incoming. That really narrows down the places where the fish can be, and you get to transition up the flat to mangrove shorelines with them as the tide comes in.” Chavez acknowledges that conditions in the dead of winter are often cold and breezy, “but the fishing’s great, and it’s uncrowded because most people don’t want to deal with the discomfort. It really is my favorite time of year.”

Catching Two Redfish at the Same Time

These productive waters harbor many surprises, and Markham recounts his most indelible Tampa Bay memory: “One morning I was fishing a small cove within lower Tampa Bay using ultralight spinning tackle with 6-pound Ande tournament monofilament and a tandem-rigged jig. As I gazed down the shoreline, I saw what looked like a school of huge jack crevalle racing up the shore, eating everything in its path. Mullet were flying, schools of glass minnows were showering, and everything was getting devoured. I waited until the school came just within casting range and made a throw ahead of the lead fish.

“Instantly I was hooked up, and my 70-yard spool of line disappeared at a quick rate. I started the outboard to give chase and get back line. As I did, I got close enough to see that I hadn’t hooked a jack crevalle but a big redfish that looked to be at least 34 inches. When it saw the boat, it bolted back toward the school.

“As I followed it to regain line, the fish caught up to the school, and I felt a big thump on the line. Instantly the fish was ripping off drag again, and then the line went limp and I cranked hard, ­realizing the fish was running toward the boat.

“That’s when I saw that I now had two fish on my line—and the second fish was even larger. But the tandem rig soon parted, and I was left with only one fish—the larger one. I fought it for another 15 minutes or so before I finally subdued it, taking a measurement before I released her. She was a 46-incher with a massive girth. She bottomed out both scales on my boat, so I don’t know the weight, but to this day it remains the biggest redfish I have ever landed, and on 6-pound ­tournament mono at that!”

Planning A Fishing Trip to Lower Tampa Bay

Who: We fished with Capt. Lori Hall, Ladyfish Charters (ladyfish​charters.com, 813-967-5032). Good knowledge, good rig, good gear; easy to recommend. Special kudos to Hall for her people skills—her patience and great sense of humor make her an exceptional guide for families who want to fish the bay.

Where: We stayed on Anna Maria Island, which guards the yawning entrance to Tampa Bay at its southern end, due west of Bradenton. There, we spent several days and nights at Waterline Resort (waterlineresort.com) in one of its Island Suites, and were thoroughly impressed. The suite was provisioned more like a luxury home than a vacation unit, and the kitchen had everything we could possibly want or need. Comfortable and quiet, the suite made us regret having to leave. Also, the resort staff raised “cheery” to a whole new level I hadn’t seen; if these folks don’t truly love their jobs, they’re world-class actors.

More: The Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg area has much to offer for extended trips or larger groups. You can explore it all online at visittampabay.com and visit ­stpeteclearwater.com.

The post Fish Tampa Bay for Inshore Action appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Tarpon: No word uttered on the Texas Gulf Coast stirs as much excitement for anglers. Yet, while virtually all of the region’s fishermen know about the presence of the silver king, relatively few pursue them.

“There’s a real mystique about tarpon,” says South Padre Island guide Capt. Brian Barrera. “Some people think the possibility of catching them is out of reach. But the reality is, especially down here, there are lots of tarpon, and anyone who studies up on them, puts some time in and has a little bit of luck can score on these awesome sport fish.”

Tarpon Time

The Gulf shoreline of the Lower Laguna Madre from Port Mansfield down to Port Isabel and into the Brownsville Ship Channel ranks as prime tarpon country. When waters calm from late summer into early fall, Barrera directs his focus to tarpon.

“We often start off at the Port Isabel jetties throwing lures like a D.O.A. Bait Buster. We’re optimally looking for rolling fish and sight casting to them,” he says.

Bait Busters are a jigging-type lure that also work as swimbaits. The shallow version comes with a single upright hook and operates at a medium sink rate so you can fish it near the surface, mid-range, or on the bottom. The deep runner weighs ¾ ounces and comes with a 5/0 hook with line-entry on top of the head, which keeps the lure sub-surface for bottom bouncing.

“I’ve caught a lot of tarpon on the Bait Buster. Throwing it is a great way to start the day,” Barrera says.

Look for tarpon facing the current outside and inside jetty walls; they also hang around large eddies and deep-water current breaks caused by displaced jetty rocks. A big fish behind the rocks just off the main wall — probably a tarpon.

Tarpon take everything from Coon Pops to Rat-L-Traps and certainly well-placed flies. But sometimes only live bait lights up the bite.

“I bring a cast net and let the water tell me what to fish. Sometimes when the pinfish are thick we’ll put one on. Other times, it’s mullet. But I’ve also seen tarpon sitting in the current sucking up blue crabs funneling out of the jetties. The angler that pays close attention to what’s going on bait-wise and doesn’t have an agenda will, more often than not, do better than those with a rigid fishing plan,” Barrera says.

Jetty Fish

Other areas that hold tarpon this time of year include the jetties near Port Aransas and Port O’Connor along the central coast. My first encounter with a big school of tarpon occurred at the Port Aransas jetties, where 25 to 30 fish in the 4- to 6-foot class fed just a few feet off the jetty wall.

I’d like to tell you I caught one of the 6-footers but they didn’t take anything we threw at them. We tried everything in our tackle box. That’s simply the nature of tarpon: aloof one day and super aggressive the next.

Surprising numbers of tarpon can also be found from High Island, just north of Galveston, down to Surfside, near Freeport. Anglers affectionately call this “Tarpon Alley.’’ Fishing a mile to 5 miles from the beach can prove productive, if you can get past the sharks and rough seas. Anglers often drift live or dead bait — usually mullet, pinfish or sand trout — through schools of menhaden that dominate the area during summer.

Tarpon Studies

Aaron Adams with Bonefish & Tarpon Trust (BTT) says that while many mysteries still cloud tarpon migration and life history, studies such as one conducted several years ago by Lucas Griffin and Andy Danylchuk provide some fascinating answers.

The researchers attached acoustic receivers to the ocean bottom throughout the tarpon’s range. These receivers detect signals from acoustic tags surgically implanted into tarpon. In Texas, listening devices were positioned from the Louisiana border to the Mexico border on the outer edge of every major bay system.

“The transmitters are the size of a AA battery and have a lifespan of five years, meaning not only can we implant them in a wide size range of tarpon, including those around 15 pounds, we can also track them over multiple years,” Griffin and Danylchuk wrote. “As the tarpon swims past the network of receivers, a unique ID code and date and time are saved on the receiver.

“With thousands of these receivers deployed across the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern United States, we can now track tarpon across the Gulf and adjacent waters and build a more detailed understanding of what really makes a tarpon move or, in some cases, stay,” the researchers say.

Results show a southern migration of Texas tarpon toward Mexico each fall. The Mississippi River Delta appears to divide east and west populations.

Massive Monsters

Barrera says he sees bigger fish arrive off South Padre a little later than smaller ones. True monsters show in August and September. He sight-fishes for these behemoths, spending as much time on the water as possible to decipher their patterns.

Read Next: More Tarpon Fishing Tips

The current state record, caught by Michael Shane LaRue II in 2017, measured 90 inches long and weighed 229 pounds.

“The biggest fish I’ve had in my boat was easily over 200 pounds,” Barrera says. “It was an absolute monster. Its scales were as big as my hand. In Texas, we can keep one tarpon 85 inches or larger, which lines up with a potential record fish.

“I didn’t know if it was a record or not. It was on the bubble. It was a true monster but to me it was better to see that fish go back to maybe even get bigger and thrill another angler.”

That kind of conservation ethic as well as support from groups like BTT appear to be generating a tarpon renaissance of sorts in Texas. As more anglers learn that they too can enjoy the tarpon action, fishing dreams will come true and appreciation for this already legendary species will grow. And that’s good for Texas anglers and the silver king.

The post Tracking Texas Tarpon appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Given a choice, most offshore and inshore anglers would fish live bait for everything, from seatrout and sailfish to tarpon and tuna. But sometimes, fishermen deliberately choose dead bait, and not just when they run out of liveys or during a dead-bait-only tournament. Dead ballyhoo, menhaden, mullet and bonito, as well as strips and chunks of those baitfish, can at times actually be more effective than live bait.

A dead bait can be deployed exactly where and how it needs to be fished, whereas a live bait can swim out of the target zone or tangle another line. In addition, the scent of a fresh dead bait can prove more attractive to predators than the nervousness of a live bait. Some predators also prefer an easy meal over chasing a live bait.

The Dead Bait Tarpon Rig

“A tarpon may be a silver king, but he’s still a scavenger,” says Capt. Greg Hildreth of St. Simons Island, Georgia, who almost always puts out some dead baits on the bottom when he’s fishing for poons. Hildreth (georgiacharter​­fishing​.com) uses dead Atlantic menhaden, more commonly known as pogies, and fishes in water depths from 8 to 25 feet. “I’ll fish four or five rods, some with live bait, some with dead,” Hildreth says. “I’ll fish at least two live baits on top and dead baits on or close to the bottom.”

Hildreth castnets his live pogies the morning of a tarpon trip and puts some of the baits on ice. He hooks a dead pogy through the eyes on an 8/0 Gamakatsu circle hook. Hildreth says the large hook size works because of coastal Georgia’s poor water clarity.

“I figure bigger is better, just for the simple fact that I can put a lot of pressure on these fish, and get them to the boat fast and released,” he explains, adding that he uses scissors to cut off the pogy’s tail. “That keeps it from spinning in the ­current and puts scent in the water.”

He fishes Penn International reels, spooled with 80-pound braided line, and attaches 4 feet of 120- to 150-pound monofilament leader to the main line with a 150-pound snap snivel. Hildreth adds a quarter-ounce egg sinker to the leader to fish the pogy midwater. If he wants the bait on the bottom, he’ll use a 1½- to 2-ounce lead. To keep the sinker from sliding too far, he crimps a sleeve 2½ feet above the hook. At the terminal end of the leader, he ties on the hook with an improved clinch knot, which “gives the hook what it needs to set when it’s in the rod holder.”

Targeting Red Drum with Dead Bait

Hildreth also fishes dead pogies on the same 8/0 inline circle hook for bull redfish. His tackle includes Penn Spinfisher 7500 reels and Penn Carnage rods. He rigs a 4- or 5-ounce pyramid sinker 4 inches above the hook to prevent the big reds—which typically range from 18 to 30 pounds—from inhaling the bait too deeply.

He crimps the sinker in place on a 150-pound monofilament leader that is 3 to 3½ feet long. The heavy leader doesn’t spook the fish, and makes it easy for Hildreth to take a double-wrap and lift the fish into the boat.

Chunks of mullet or whiting also catch redfish, and Hildreth sometimes uses the remnants of legal-size trout that he’s filleted. “When I’m speckled trout fishing, if I know I’m going to fish for bull redfish in a day or so, I’ll keep the carcasses of the trout, the head being the best bait. Anything that smells nasty and fishy, they’ll eat,” he says. “If it’s a small trout, 14 to 15 inches (14 inches is Georgia’s legal minimum), I’ll go right through the eye sockets with the hook. If it’s a bigger trout, I’ll go from the ­bottom lip to the top lip.”

Trolling Bonito Strips

Capt. Abie Raymond trolls bonito strips for bonito, kingfish, sailfish, tuna, wahoo and dolphin out of Miami Beach, Florida. To prepare his baits, he ­fillets a bonito and removes most of the meat with a knife blade, until the ­fillet is ⅛ inches thick. That allows the hook to penetrate a fish’s mouth more efficiently.

He cuts the fillet with the blade angled to produce a beveled edge, which is hydrodynamic, yielding a strip that resembles a thin baitfish. Raymond squares off one end—which will serve as the top of the strip—and pokes a hole in it with the knife. He sprinkles kosher salt over the strips to remove water from them and toughen them up, then places them in a zip-closure plastic bag.

To fish them, Raymond uses Penn International 16 reels spooled with 20-pound line. The leader setup starts with 4 to 6 feet of 50-pound ­fluorocarbon. He ties a perfection loop at one end and clips it into a snap swivel. The terminal end of the leader features a flashy, reverse-feather Mylar Sea Witch—his favorite colors are pink-and-blue and blue-and-white—above a Mustad 7/0 J hook tied to the leader with a six‑turn improved clinch knot.

Raymond inserts a 4-inch piece of Monel wire through the hook eye, wraps it below the eye three times, and then threads it back through the eye. He runs the Monel through the hole at the top of the strip so the meat side of the strip runs along the shank of the hook. He then wraps the wire below the tag end of the clinch knot to secure the strip, and pokes the hook point through the ­center of the strip.

“That’s our favorite dead bait to work with [from June through September],” Raymond says. “We’ll put out two of those strip baits on our outriggers 80 to 120 feet behind the boat, along with a lure like a Billy Bait or Dolphin Jr. We stagger them: A 20-foot feather, a 40-foot feather, an 80-foot strip and a 100-foot strip would be our typical four-bait spread.”

Raymond favors trolling bonito strips over ballyhoo because strips last longer and can be cut to resemble a 4-, 6- or 8-inch flying fish, its wings imitated by the Sea Witch. “Another huge ­advantage of a strip over a ballyhoo is if a sailfish grabs a ballyhoo and rips off the tail, you’re done. A bonito strip, he’ll just grab it and grab it. It might stretch and get longer, and the meat might come off, but the skin’s still there swimming and looking beautiful,” he says.

Dead ballyhoo, of course, still remain a popular trolling bait, especially for dolphin. Raymond rigs skirted ballyhoo on a Mustad 3417 7/0 J hook tied to a 15-foot, 50-pound monofilament wind-on leader on a 20-pound spinning outfit. “You fish it like a strip, 80 to 120 feet behind an outboard boat, 60 to 100 feet behind an inboard boat,” Raymond says. “You want to troll at 6 to 6½ knots.”

Whether they’re dead or alive, fresh natural baits—rigged meticulously and fished properly—­consistently produce for anglers whether offshore on the troll or nearshore on the bottom. Use each option to your advantage. Dead bait might be old-school, but it never goes out of style.

The post Fishing Dead Bait: Old-School Theories and Updated Techniques appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

How can you distinguish dyed-in-the-scales tarpon fanatics from other anglers? It’s easy. Broach topics like sports, politics, religion or business, and all you’ll get is a wan smile and an appeasing head nod. Mention tarpon, however, and it’s like plugging in the Christmas tree lights — eyes go ablaze and hearts go aflutter.

What accounts for this love of fishing for Megalops atlanticus, better known as tarpon, silver kings and poons? They’re big, they’re powerful and they’re beautiful. And, once the hook is set, the fight is like a choreographed scene replete with hole-in-the-ocean jumps and hold-onto-your-rod-for-dear-life runs.

A great aspect of Florida tarpon fishing is that, depending on the chosen method, even a rookie can land a 100-plus-pounder. That’s most often accomplished by fishing live bait on a circle hook in a channel where poons aggregate. However, the necessary skill level escalates exponentially when sight-fishing for silver kings. That scenario puts an angler on the bow of a skiff in shallow water, wielding the weaponry of light tackle or fly gear.

The best Florida tarpon-fishing seasons vary from one area of the state to another, by habitat and size of fish, and time of day (day vs night). The bottom line is that you can find/catch tarpon somewhere in Florida every month of the year.

Many passionate tarpon tamers progress from the bait-soaking stage to sight-fishing. No matter one’s style preference, however, Florida tops all states in presenting year-round opportunities for catching tarpon.

How to Catch Tarpon

Before the advent of circle hooks, it was difficult to master the timing needed to set the hook on a tarpon. Their bony mouths coupled with a penchant for quickly dispelling hooks with frantic jumps and furious head shakes usually left anglers with short-lived thrills. Circle hooks changed all that.

Live baits such as mullet, horse shrimp, pinfish, pilchards and crabs on a circle hook often seduce hungry poons. Freeline the offering so it floats with the current or tie the line several feet above the bait to a balloon that breaks away when a strike occurs. Cut baits weighted to lay on the bottom also get their measure of strikes, as tarpon are avid scavengers.

When you get a hit, remove slack and let the circle hook do its job as designed by turning and lodging into the corner of the fish’s jaw. Tarpon average 30 to 80 pounds, but big mommas and poppas can run double those sizes and more. Unless you’re deft at quickly landing a big fish on light tackle, go with medium to heavy spin or conventional gear and a sturdy measure of fluorocarbon leader. Avoid overly long battles if possible, as these often render tarpon too tired to escape the mighty maws of hammerheads or bull sharks. Catching tarpon on lures is big fun, especially fish less than 100 pounds, with sturdy saltwater hooks.

They will hit just about anything worked slowly with a bit of flash and color emulating minnows. Top-water, sinking and diving lures do well — go with single hooks rather than trebles to reduce jaw damage.

Once a tarpon is hooked, keep the pressure on when the fish runs. Follow if in a boat; if fishing from shore or a pier, you’d better have a large-arbor reel with plenty of line or you’ll be spooled.

When the poon stops running, pump-and-wind like a metronome on speed. At the first sight of the fish going airborne, “bow to the king” by pointing your rod at the fish and leaning toward it to create line slack. If a big fish jumps and lands away from you, a taut line often breaks.

Look for signs of tarpon such as rolling fish at the surface to gulp air or swirling at the water’s surface caused by their tails. Chumming by stunning live baits (squeeze the heads or bounce them off an outboard engine’s cowling) will quickly reveal if you’re amid poons or instead need to reposition. The following tarpon fishing locations are but a few of the many silver king kingdoms around Florida, but are among the best-known.

Tarpon Fishing in the Florida Keys

Almost all line-class and fly-tippet world records for tarpon caught in U.S. waters come from the Florida Keys (usually referred to simply as the Keys). These 43 islands connected by 42 bridges extend over 100 miles southwest of Miami from Key Largo to Key West. The Keys form a separation between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, including the shallow estuary of Florida Bay.

Flushed and nourished daily by ocean and Gulf tidal currents, the reefs, channels, canals, bridges and flats host a food chain from invertebrates to shellfish to baitfish. This abundance makes for an expansive game fish restaurant, and diners like tarpon don’t need to make reservations. While some poons are residential in nature and remain permanent locals, studies reveal that in the spring and fall, large schools of tarpon follow migrating mullet swimming up and down both Florida’s coasts and in and around the Keys.

If you like to play bridge, you can pick up tarpon in the Upper Keys at Bridge #2, Bridge #5, Long Key Bridge and Seven Mile Bridge. Florida Bay is a prime area, particularly the deeper moats around some of the small keys and in channels bisecting the myriad mud and grass flats. The Atlantic and Gulf “strips” — the edges of flats around Islamorada, Marathon and Key West — are renowned tarpon sites. Same goes for Key West Harbor.

Tarpon Fishing in Miami

Deep cuts with a lot of moving water excite tarpon populations off Miami and around Biscayne Bay. The most prolific haunt for tarpon year after year is Government Cut. It’s the manmade channel with a U.S. Coast Guard station on one side and, on the other, Miami’s port that features a slew of cruise and cargo ships. This wide and deep cut divides Miami Beach from Fisher Island, with a jetty at the mouth.

Late afternoons and evenings, with a moving tide, make for frequent tarpon encounters and a respite from the tropical sun. Full moons in April, May and June are notorious for tarpon action. If relegated to one choice of baits, go with a silver-dollar-size blue crab. If oversize live shrimp are available, try those second. It’s nice, though, to have a complement of offerings besides crabs, such as fresh-cut bait or diving/noisy lures.

Mullet migrate along the beaches during the fall, making for good shore fishing near Haulover Inlet. Bear Cut is known to hold poons, especially those loitering between Biscayne Bay and Key Largo.

Tarpon Fishing in Boca Grande

Calling itself the “Tarpon Capital of the World,” Boca Grande Pass’s tarpon action can become so frenzied at times with so many simultaneous hook-ups that it becomes quite a spectacle just watching skiffs winding in and around each other to avoid breakoffs.

Boca Grande Pass divides the southern end of Gasparilla Island and the northern portion of Cayo Costa. The pass is southwest of the outflow of Charlotte Harbor, which itself is a repository of spawning tarpon from spring to October. Boca Grande Pass is deep, ranging from just over 30 feet to nearly 70 feet.

From early April through July, schools of tarpon sometimes numbering in the hundreds migrate through the pass. Because of the swiftness of the current here, the drill is to drift the pass rather than anchor. Baits, lures (particularly tipped jigs) and flies of all types do well. Due to the large congregations of tarpon often present, fishing tournaments are popular, and a day’s fishing for an angler often results in multiple poon encounters.

I once battled a silver king in the 80-pound range on fly during a May visit, with scores of other skiffs present. Experienced guides were artful in averting tangles, but a few neophytes didn’t move their skiffs out of the way in time and a prop eventually dashed my clash. It didn’t make me very happy, but soon enough another battle ensued successfully.

Tarpon Fishing in Tampa Bay

Satellite tagging has revealed that tarpon migrate from as far as Mexico, following the Gulf coast to the Florida Keys and up the state’s Atlantic coast. At various times that brings silver kings off Tampa Bay, providing a number of haunts for anglers to check out.

One of the prime locations is Egmont Channel just north of Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay. It’s an ultra-deep channel by Florida standards, with depths exceeding 80 feet in some spots. An outgoing tide often flushes huge numbers of crabs from the bay through the channel and out into the Gulf. Tarpon know it well, and so do savvy anglers.

Drift with the tide and free-line a circle-hooked crab amid the fray. It’s some of the best tarpon fishing in the world when the action gets hot.

Other promising locations to pounce on poons include John’s Pass, Sunshine Skyway Bridge, Anna Maria Island, Fort De Soto Park, and beaches from Longboat Key to Pass-A-Grille. Dependable baits include menhaden, greenbacks (aka whitebaits), crabs and pinfish. If bait is scarce, cast deep-diving, shiny-and-noisy single-hook plugs.

The post Best Tarpon Fishing In Florida appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Tarpon are smart, or stubborn — I’m not sure which. Maybe both? No matter what, a tarpon’s lack of appetite some days makes for frustrating fishing. What I’ve learned over the years is that figuring out the best tarpon lures and understanding which ones work best for your area can go a long way.

I remember one summer trip off a Florida beach when school after school of tarpon swam underneath the boat, completely ignoring our best presentations. Dozens of tarpon patrolled just below and at the surface, often gulping air in defiance to our offerings.

There’s no better way to get out of that tarpon rut than by switching tactics, as my friends and I learned later that month. A local guide let slip that the tarpon were biting white, oversize jerk baits rigged to appropriate-size jig heads. For the rest of the summer, we jumped and released plenty of tarpon along the beaches. I say “jumped” because tarpon are tough to catch, and getting jumps and long runs out of them is still fun fishing, even if they never make it to the boat.

While there can never be 100 percent certainty what tarpon will chew (even if they devoured it last season or last month) I surveyed top captains, fishing-show hosts, tackle shops and lure manufacturers to find the best tarpon lures. To list every valuable tarpon lure would fill an entire book, so we kept it to a mix of 10 hard and soft baits, listed in no particular order.

Quicklook: 10 Best Lures for Tarpon

• Bomber: Badonk-A-Donk High Pitch
• D.O.A. Lures: Terror Eyz
• Hogy Lures: Original Hogy
• Z-Man Lures: Z-Man Streakz
• Yo-Zuri: Crystal 3-D Minnow Magnum
• Rapala: Glidin’ Rap 12
• MirrOlure: Series III Suspending Twitchbait
• Sebile: Magic Swimmer Fast Sinking 145
• Live Target: Scaled Sardine Wakebait
• Storm Lures: WildEye Swim Shad

Bomber

Expert: Capt. Chris O’Neill, Englewood, Florida

Weapon of Choice: Badonk-A-Donk High Pitch (4.75 inches)

Color: Depending on the sky conditions, O’Neill’s first choices are silver mullet or speckled trout. If the sky is bright and the water’s flat, he’ll use a color with a bone- or orange-colored throat.

Fishing Conditions: O’Neill prefers the water’s surface to be lightly choppy or flat calm, though such conditions are not absolutely necessary. Look for signs of tarpon rolling at the surface or feeding on mullet or ladyfish. In the waters around Boca Grande, Florida, O’Neill prefers fishing from August through October. There’s zero pressure that time of the year, and migrating fish are happy throughout the estuary, he says. They are far more willing to take a topwater lure.

Technique: Spot the tarpon and try to get ahead of the pod quietly. Work the bait down-current of the fish, just as Mother Nature would, says O’Neill. Baitfish do not swim against current, toward a school of hungry tarpon. Use a twitch-twitch-pause retrieve — and boom! — expect to get hit, says O’Neill.

Rigging: O’Neill, who’s a Penn pro, prefers an 8-foot Penn Legion rod armed with a Penn Spinfisher 6500 spinning reel. He uses 50-pound braided main line, connected to 60-pound fluorocarbon leader with an Albright knot. But before he ties on the Badonk-A-Donk with a loop knot, he replaces the treble hooks with stout short-shank hooks to increase hookup ratios and minimize potential damage to the fish.

D.O.A. Lures

Expert: Capt. Ed Zyak; Jensen Beach, Florida

Weapon of Choice: Terror Eyz (regular size; “I have caught more tarpon on this lure than all others combined,” Zyak says.)

Color: Root beer

Fishing Conditions: The lure works great on the beach in clear water, as well as the stained waters of backcountry rivers.

Technique: When using the Terror Eyz, Zyak ­typically casts to rolling fish — long, accurate casts are a must. Cast 4 to 6 feet in front of a rolling fish, and let the lure sink freely for a three- to four-second count, he says. Then use a steady, slow retrieve with no jigging movement at all. The bite is usually very light, but make sure to set the hook hard, says Zyak.

Rigging: Zyak prefers a 5,000-size Shimano Stella spinning reel on a 7- or 7½ -foot, medium-heavy rod. He spools with 30-pound braid and 50-pound ­fluorocarbon leader. The line-to-line connection is a double uni-knot, and the Terror Eyz gets a loop knot at the eye. This setup gives the best balance of distance and accuracy, plus great drag and power from the rod, the guide says.

Go Ballistic

Hogy Lures

Expert: Capt. Aaron Snell; Key West, Florida

Weapon of Choice: Original Hogy (10 inches)

Color: Snell prefers bone, followed by bubble gum. He’ll use black in low light or in off-colored waters.

Fishing Conditions: Snell prefers to sight-fish for tarpon over crystal-clear flats. For fishing around bridges, Ross Gallagher, director of retail sales at Hogy, recommends a black Hogy rigged to a jig head. More and more Keys captains bounce the jig along the bottom to catch tarpon in deeper waters, he says.

Technique: When flats fishing, get the lure in the water well ahead of the fish. Retrieve the bait with light twitches right into the fish’s strike zone. Vary the retrieval speed to the fish’s cruising speed, says Snell. Then set the hook down and to the side as soon as you feel the pop, he says. If the tarpon is swimming toward the boat, make sure it turns away before striking.

Rigging: Snell uses an 8-foot, ­medium- to ­fast-action ­spinning rod coupled with a reel that handles 30-pound braid. He ties a Bimini twist into the braid, and then uses a ninja or double slim knot to attach 2 feet of 60-pound fluorocarbon. Sometimes he’ll incorporate a section of furled nylon to add stretch. He rigs the Hogy to a weightless, 10/0 swimbait hook. Leader-to-hook connection is a Homer Rhode loop.

Single Serving

Z-Man Lures

Expert: Capt. Andrew Bostick; Marco Island, Florida

Weapon of Choice: Z-Man Streakz (5 or 8 inches)

Color: Black or white

Fishing Conditions: Bostick covers the waters from Marco Island to Everglades National Park on the southwest coast of Florida. He searches for tarpon feeding high in the water in both clear and tannic conditions. Since the lure is up in the water column, he says, it’s exciting to see the strikes.

Technique: Bostick fishes the soft bait when sight‑casting to rolling fish or blind-casting in a productive area. During the retrieve, he jerks the bait 6 to 8 inches, lets it sit for a second or two, and repeats. It’s important to wait for the fish to turn after it eats because anglers set the hook too fast at times.

Rigging: Bostick rigs the 5-inch Streakz with an Owner 4/0 Aki hook; the 8-inch is rigged with a 7/0. He uses a medium-heavy setup spooled with 20-pound braid, ending with 60- to 80-pound leader. Super glue the ElaZTech material of the Streakz to the hook, recommends Bostick. Once glued, the bait lasts longer than other soft plastics and has an impressive lifelike look.

Yo-Zuri

Expert: George Large, general manager, Yo-Zuri America

Weapon of Choice: Crystal 3-D Minnow Magnum

Color: In clear water, Large uses the holographic sardine color; in tannic water, he uses the holographic bunker; and in dirty water, he chooses holographic chartreuse.

Fishing Conditions: Spring and fall are the best times of the year, especially around new moons and during flood tides, says Large. As far as water conditions go, the lures work well in most waters, but tannic tints really set off the ultraviolet colors.

Technique: It’s as simple as casting and retrieving. Work the lure with a consistent retrieve — fast or slow, says Large. The tarpon will let you know what they prefer. Sometimes incorporate intermittent pause-jerk-pause actions to increase strikes, he says.

Rigging: It’s really up to the user, says Large. He uses a medium-heavy rod rigged with 60- to 80-pound braid, paired with a strong baitcasting or spinning reel. Large ties 80- to 130-pound ­fluorocarbon leader to a heavy-duty split ring attached to the lure’s line tie.

Gulp

Rapala

Expert: Capt. Rick Murphy, host of the Chevy Florida Insider Fishing Report and Sportsman’s Adventures

Weapon of Choice: Glidin’ Rap 12

Color: Gold shiner

Fishing Conditions: Capt. Rick Murphy spends plenty of time fishing Everglades National Park in South Florida for the silver king. He targets laid-up tarpon in the back bays, swirling with clear to tannic-brown waters, during the prime months of May to October.

Technique: Murphy prefers blind- or sight-casting to rolling fish with shallow-running lures that feature strong side-to-side action. He casts out in front of the tarpon and twitches the rod tip to give the lure a walk-the-dog presentation, a forced zigzag motion that many lure anglers are familiar with. Often, tarpon hit the lure during the pause. So far, his largest lure-caught tarpon is 140 pounds.

Rigging: Murphy prefers plug tackle, opting for a 7-foot rod paired with a 400-size baitcasting reel. He rigs up with 20-pound braid main line tied to 60-pound fluorocarbon leader. All line connections use the time-tested uni-knot.

Wide-Eyed

MirrOlure

Expert: Capt. Rhett Morris; Port Charlotte, Florida

Weapon of Choice: Series III Suspending Twitchbait (S25MR)

Color: Morris prefers chartreuse, red-head-and-white back, or apple-red-and-gold

Fishing Conditions: The best time of year to catch tarpon is April through June, as well as in fall, says Morris. He looks for glass-calm waters so the lure leaves a surface wake while being worked toward the boat. Still, the suspending twitchbait works in choppier waters too, so don’t fret when waters aren’t dead calm.

Technique: Cast the lure 10 feet in front of a rolling fish, then slowly work it with a series of twitches. Morris tries to follow a one-second pause with a three-second pause. He’ll change to a one-two count when retrieving the lure more erratically. Try hard to make the bait look like injured, easy prey, says Morris.

Rigging: Morris removes the front hook of the MirroLure and replaces the back treble with a 3x-strong Owner treble hook. That single, rear hook has a better hookup ratio, he says. He attaches the plug to 6 feet of 60-pound leader with a no-name loop knot. Make sure to use at least a 7½-foot rod that can handle 50-pound braid and an 8,000-size reel, he says.

Pretty in Pink

Sebile

Expert: Patrick Sebile, founder of Sebile Lures

Weapon of Choice: Magic Swimmer Fast Sinking 145

Color: A natural shiny color for the daytime. At night, Sebile chooses white so he can see the lure in the water.

Fishing Conditions: The best time of the year is during spring and fall, or anytime tarpon are active in shallow waters.

Technique: Sebile rigs his lures to fish in a number of ways. Cast and reel in the lure with a straight retrieve, or slow-troll the lure behind the boat. If anchored, let the bait sit still so the “Magic Swimmer can do its magic,” says Sebile. The natural wobble of the Magic Swimmer in the current draws strikes from tarpon.

Rigging: Sebile developed this rig years ago when guiding for monster tarpon in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. Sebile connects a circle hook to a swivel, holding the hook onto the swivel with a rubber stopper. On the other end of the swivel, a split ring attaches to the lure. The rig allows anglers to change sizes and models but still allows total freedom for the lure to swim, he says. Once the fish is hooked, there’s no leverage on the lure’s body and less of a chance to break off. The hook lips the tarpon when they swallow it, minimizing intrusion of the hook in the fish’s mouth, Sebile says.

Live Target

Expert: Henry Waszczuk, host of Fishing the Flats

Weapon of Choice: Scaled Sardine Wakebait (4½ inches)

Color: Ghost amber

Fishing Conditions: Waszczuk prefers stained water, where tarpon can’t overanalyze his presentation. He targets fish in Florida Keys backcountry waters near tide rips, mangroves and other holding areas, plus near bridge structure.

Technique: Tarpon are notorious for keying in on live baits such as crabs, threadfin herring or scaled sardines, so it’s no surprise that Waszczuk recommends twitchbaits, swimbaits and wakebaits that mimic them. Waszczuk makes long casts to the tarpon, staying as far away as he can from the pods, and then utilizes a quick-pause erratic retrieve. The height of the rod tip off the water dictates the various depths your lure swims, he says.

Rigging: A medium-heavy rod matched to your favorite spinning reel is all that’s necessary. Waszczuk uses braid in the 40- to 50-pound class but recommends the angler determine the line weight based on the size of tarpon in the area. Tie a fluoro leader to the terminal end, and then add the plug. Waszczuk works the bait with the rod tip for the best action.

Head Turner

Storm Lures

Expert: Robert Lugiewicz, manager at Fishin’ Franks tackle shop in Charlotte Harbor, Florida

Weapon of Choice: WildEye Swim Shad (4 to 6 inches)

Color: Lugiewicz prefers bunker or mullet colors but says the best color changes from year to year.

Fishing Conditions: Sight-or drift-fishing in the harbor or along the beaches offers the best of both worlds in summer. Lugiewicz prefers a bit of a breeze and some chop on the water, and looks for schools of mullet or threadfin schools. In Charlotte Harbor, he’ll search out deeper holes, ranging from 6 to 20 feet deep.

Technique: Besides casting in front of tarpon schools and letting the bait sink, Lugiewicz offers a tip you might not have considered. Put a float above a swimbait, cast it out, and stick the rod in an ­out-of-the-way holder while drifting. Forget about it while casting to other fish in the area. He’s caught countless tarpon this way, he says — Rodney the Rod Holder to the rescue.

Rigging: Rigging is a cinch with the line-to-­swimbait connection using a basic uni-knot (no leader). Lugiewicz uses an 8-foot rod, such as a Shimano Teramar, and pairs it with a Penn Battle spooled with 50-pound braid. (He’s not affiliated with either manufacturer.) Leader strength is 60- to 80-pound fluorocarbon.

Take this Lure Out of Your Tackle Box

The post 10 Best Tarpon Lures appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Tucked away in the southeastern corner of the Yucatan Peninsula, this tiny Central American nation (about the size of Massachusetts) was known as British Honduras until 1973. Belize boasts the second largest barrier reef in the world (after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef) with dozens of cays and islets. The country’s 174-mile coastline offers huge areas of sandy flats dotted with patches of turtle grass — ideal habitat for bonefish and permit.

Among anglers, Belize is known for its consistently productive, year-round fishing for both of those prized inshore trophy species. Add tarpon to the mix and it’s understandable that Belize ranks near the top of places in the world where anglers can accomplish a coveted shallow-water slam: permit, bonefish and tarpon in one day. But don’t limit yourself! Belize boasts a good population of snook in its rivers and mangrove-lined bays. Add snook to the other three species and join the ranks of super-slammers. Slam or not, fishing Belize is particularly popular with fly fishermen.

Unique among Central American nations, at least 40 percent of the country’s mainland and coast is protected. The barrier reef system has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1996. The reef runs for more than 180 miles, in places only 1,000 feet from shore but in other areas 25 miles out.

Some popular areas include Turneffe Atoll, the country’s largest atoll, located about 20 miles off the coast, near Belize City. It’s renowned for big schools of bonefish, but also numbers of permit. A marine reserve, Turneffe remains pristine, with vast expanses of mangrove and seagrass habitats around the island. Ambergris Caye is Belize’s largest island, famed for white-sand beaches and turquoise shallows. It’s perennially popular with tourists, being a mere 15-minute small-plane flight from Belize City. Nevertheless, it remains a solid spot for inshore fishing, particularly for sight-casting to tarpon on its extensive flats. Some of Belize’s other outstanding spots for anglers include the Placencia peninsula, and Hopkins and Glover’s reefs in the south.

Planning a Trip

When to Go

As noted above, this is truly year-round fishing. Larger tarpon tend to be more seasonal, given their migratory nature; late spring and summer is a peak time but smaller fish can be caught anytime on flats, in channels, creeks and bays. Winter can be tougher for bones, while fall is prime time for permit. Because fishing can be good throughout the year, timing a trip may come down to weather more than anything. Spring tends to be a bit windier (prevailing trade winds are generally from an eastern quadrant). From late February into May is the dry season, and June through much of the fall, is the wet season. It’s worth noting that the northern part of Belize receives considerably less rain than the south. Also keep in mind the possibility of hurricanes summer and fall. Direct strikes on Belize are rare, but tropical wind and rain spun off by big storms can hinder fishing.

Where to Go and How to Get There

Major airlines offer regular flights from several U.S. cities into Belize City’s international airport. Once in Belize, there are regular flights and ferry service to Ambergris Caye, but more distant resorts are reached primarily via chartered flights that the resorts provide or arrange.

Grand Caribe Belize is a beautiful resort in San Pedro Belize, located 2 miles north of town on Ambergris Caye. The condo style accommodations cater to anglers and families, plus the barrier reef sits just a half-mile offshore their beaches. This year, the resort hosted their 7th annual Deep Sea Classic fishing tournament in July.

What to Expect

English, for one thing: While you’ll hear Spanish and creole, English is the primary, official language, making Belize the only country in Central America where this is true. You’ll find plenty of hotels in Belize City. Most resorts provide tackle, though serious fishermen often bring their own (and fly fishing is particularly popular in Belize’s shallow waters). Though largely overlooked, reef and bluewater fishing await just beyond the flats. Besides fishing, in Belize’s forested interior you can plan visits to the country’s amazing Mayan ruins, remnants of a great ancient Maya empire. Note: upon leaving, you’ll need to pay a departure tax (unless included in the airline’s fare), and only cash is accepted.

Helpful Links

• For general information: travelbelize.org
• You’ll also find more good information at: travel.usnews.com/belize

The post The Beauty of Belize appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

The Not So Common Permit

For permit addicts, the Florida Keys is a special place. But the holy grail is somewhere else entirely: the Seychelles. The Indo-Pacific permit, with its yellow-tipped fins, thrives here on the remote Poivre and St. Joseph atolls. Sometimes called the snubnose pompano, it’s a top-five fish for any globe-trotting flats fly angler.

But this Indian Ocean adventure is not for the weak, requiring plenty of planning and travel to get there. Then, it’s wade-fishing all day on shallow flats, searching for a fish known to laugh at a perfectly placed crab fly. Once you hook and hold one, all that frustration disappears. —Sam Hudson

In Honor of the Toughness of Tarpon

Tarpon are survivors. After all, they’ve been swimming the seas since dinosaurs roamed the earth. They can live more than 70 years. How have tarpon survived for so long when so many other species have gone extinct? It’s their ability to survive in a wide variety of conditions, and on a wide variety of sustenance.

The silver king can live in full fresh or full salt water, but most important is its special ability to breathe air at the surface using a row of lunglike tissue in the swim bladder. As juvenile fish, this allows them to live in stagnant, low-oxygen waters with fewer predators and competition. Canals, ditches, ponds—waters that don’t connect to salt water for most of the year—are no problem for them.

And the juvies make do with whatever food they can forage in these backwaters. Baby tarpon are opportunistic feeders, eating ants, shrimp, crabs and fly larvae. In fact, in 2020, Bonefish & Tarpon Trust highlighted a study that looked at the diets of juvenile tarpon in seven Florida locations. The conclusion: Tarpon will eat whatever fits in their mouths. —Nick Roberts

Bonefish Slime Matters

Props to conservation organization Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, which recently launched the Save the Slime campaign to promote proper bonefish handling techniques, developed in collaboration with top guides and bonefish lodges. Poor handling can remove their protective mucus layer and leave them vulnerable to sharks after release.

The techniques boil down to this: Avoid touching the fish, and if you want to hold one for a quick photo, then do so without sun gloves and limit air exposure to less than 10 seconds. Research shows that a bonefish held out of water for longer than that is six times less likely to survive once released.

As the campaign slogan proclaims: “The important part isn’t how you catch them. It’s how you let them go.” —Nick Roberts

Pumpkins With Fins

Over my 40-plus years of feeding flies to redfish in five coastal states, little compares to the Louisiana marsh. The shallow-water, bull redfish in bright auburn hues are like nothing else in inshore fishing. I call Venice “the Pumpkin Patch” due to the color and size of the red drum willing to eat a fly any day of the year.

On my first cast to a string of 30-plus-pounders one November morning, I made the typical “Florida cast,” leading the oncoming fish by 5 feet. They were gliding slowly, pec fins out, glowing golden orange in the muddy water.

“Mike, pick up and go again. Give the lead fish a mustache,” urged Capt. Brian Esposito from the poling platform. I picked up my line and slapped my big, bushy streamer between the fish’s eyes. The take was immediate and explosive. I cleared my running line to the reel and held on as it towed the skiff. After a couple of bulldogging runs, Esposito staked the pole and grabbed the fish. It weighed 31 pounds.

“A pretty good one,” Esposito said. “But we’ll see bigger, I promise.”

And we did. The pumpkin parade went on all day—singles, pairs, small schools. Out of about 40 shots, we landed 30 or more reds.

This happens year-round in Louisiana, with the biggest fish common from fall through spring. I once fished with a guide on a January week when the Roseau cane lining the outer marsh was covered in ice all day, with highs in the upper 30s. And amazingly, the fish ate flies. So, book a Louisiana poling guide, dress right, and be damn sure to give ’em a mustache. Chances are you’ve fished for reds, but haven’t experienced anything like Louisiana’s Mississippi river mouth monsters. —Mike Conner

A Striped Bass Favorite: Sand Eels

Sand eels are one of the baits that cause stripers to abandon caution and venture into dangerously skinny water. Correctly known as a sand lance, these thin, eel-like fish burrow directly into the sand. While some stretches of the coast have sand eels all season long, fall brings in large schools that hug the shoreline, and stripers follow.

Schools of 20- to 30-pound stripers are often right on their heels, slipping along the lip of an open beach with their backs and pectoral fins cutting the surface, massive tails wagging back and forth. These feeding frenzies look like something out of a BBC wildlife documentary, and offer some of the most exciting fishing of the entire season. —Joe Albanese

The post Did You Know This About Your Favorite Flats Fish? appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Despite the Atlantic tarpon’s 120-million-year existence, it has a relatively short angling history. Not a revered food fish and sometimes freakish in size, it took time to develop strong tackle to tame such beasts. New York architect William Halsey Wood couldn’t have imagined that his trip to southwest Florida in spring 1885 would birth an entire industry. But it did, and the rest is quite literally history.

1885

The first tarpon caught on rod and reel was documented by angler William Halsey Wood in 1885 on a bamboo rod, a conventional reel and a live mullet. It weighed 93 pounds. Fittingly, the site was Tarpon Bay near Sanibel Island, Florida.

1894

Southwest Florida ­tarpon fishing catches fire, and the fish fueled the region’s ­economy. For many, tarpon were essentially the first fish of a big-game ­fishing addiction. Local newspapers reported weekly lists of ­tarpon catches, with 438 caught in 1894.

1902

The techniques and tackle evolved at a fast clip. The silver king started a revolution. The star drag reel, invented by reel-maker Edward vom Hofe in 1902, replaced the “knuckle-busters” that made fighting big tarpon a painful endeavor.

1911

Outdoor writer A.W. Dimmock’s The Book of the Tarpon is published, bringing tarpon fishing to the general public. Dimmock came up with a weight formula for the fish (girth squared times length divided by 800), allowing anglers to release their catch alive.

1982

Billy Pate set a fly-fishing record on 16-pound tippet with a 188-pound tarpon caught off Homosassa in 1982. That catch started the frantic world-record chase on fly by the best fly-fishers in the business. Pate’s 16-pound tippet record was broken on May 13, 2003, with a 190-pound, 9-ounce tarpon caught by Tom Evans Jr.

1994

The biggest tarpon specimen landed by a woman stands at 249 pounds, caught by Frederique Jarland, fishing out of Sherbro Island, Sierra Leone. The fish was fought on 30-pound line. Sierra Leone holds nine ­tarpon world records.

2001

Capt. Steve Kirkpatrick guided angler Jim Holland Jr. to the first tarpon over 200 pounds ever taken on fly tackle. On May 11, Holland landed a ­202-pound, 8-ounce tarpon on 20-pound tippet fishing off Florida’s ­central west coast near Homosassa.

2003

The all-tackle world-­record fish was certified as the 80-pound line-class record at 286 pounds, 9 ounces. It was caught by Max Domecq in Rubane, Guinea-Bissau, Africa, on March 20, 2003. Lure designer Patrick Sebile was the guide.

2021

On May 8, 2021, a giant tarpon was caught off Bahia Solano, Colombia, in South America. The angler was American Josh Jorgensen, who runs the BlacktipH YouTube channel. He and his companions took turns fighting the fish to competition. It measured 87 inches long with a 54-inch girth. Modern tarpon calculators estimate that the fish weighed 312 pounds.

The post The Evolution of Tarpon Fishing appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

If you spend any time in the Florida Keys from March to May you know about the hot tarpon fishing around the bridges. Islamorada’s Channel 2 and Channel 5 bridges consistently produce. Near Marathon, the Seven-Mile and Bahia Honda bridges can be packed with boaters, soaking live crabs and silver mullet to hookup. At night time, some anglers cast and jig eel imitations around bridges with success. 

But a second, ever-growing attraction has spliced itself among the tarpon bonanza — hammerhead sharks. What first started years ago as isolated shark encounters have become as regular as the tides. Viral videos show triple-digit tarpon attacked by hammerhead sharks as long as a bay boat. Those videos or real-life experiences used to produce audible gasps, now they generate groans and anger. Boat-side interactions are happening more frequently, so much so that the routine hammerhead encounters have become an issue for anglers and tarpon alike.

Tracking Sharks Movements

Investigators wanted to study the interactions where hammerhead sharks attacked and ate tarpon, known as “depredation,” so they set out to track Florida’s sharks’ movements. An international team of researchers, led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, compiled a massive dataset covering the position, migration and interaction of sharks and game fish. The researchers focused on the Florida Keys over a three-year period. In all, the team deployed nearly 300 acoustic receivers and tagged 257 fish (including 73 sharks) with transmitters on bull sharks, hammerheads, tarpon and permit.

Here’s how it worked: Every time a tagged shark or fish swam within range of the receiver, its location was recorded and tagged with the date and time. Using acoustic telemetry gave the team long-needed stats on the migratory, reproductive and feeding patterns of sharks. Then, the team ran their raw data through a unique machine-learning algorithm to model the complex interaction of environmental factors, such as time of year, lunar cycle, water depth and temperature.

“Combining acoustic telemetry and machine learning helped us to answer a host of questions about predators and prey,” said Grace Casselberry, the paper’s other co-lead author and a PhD candidate at UMass Amherst’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

Tarpon and permit repeat the same spawning migrations and return to the same spawning grounds, at the same times of year, every year. “[Sharks] seem to remember where and when the tarpon and permit aggregate,” said Casselberry.

That’s no surprise to tarpon anglers who have been outspoken about their increasing encounters with sharks, often in the form of their hooked fish getting chomped.

Bahia Honda’s Hammerhead Sharks

From April 2019 to July 2021, Casselberry was focused on acoustic telemetry. But from April to May in 2019, she conducted a visual survey of hammerhead sharks and tarpon at the Bahia Honda bridges to quantify depredation rates and identify factors that most influence depredation.

The survey spanned 211 hours of fishing, recording 394 hooked fish. A total of 104 fish were observed being landed. Twenty-fish depredations occurred, with 4 post-release mortalities. Any subsurface post-release mortalities were not able to be observed or recorded.

“The average time to land a tarpon was 12.7 minutes,” said Casselberry. “Depredation was most likely to occur after 9.5 minutes; post-release mortality after 9 minutes.”

Casselberry tracked the tides, currents, fight time, number of boaters fishing, number of fish hooked at one time, number of times a tarpon jumped, time of day, and plenty of other variables to try to understand when a hammerhead shark was most likely to attack a tarpon.

“Hammerheads are modifying their use of Bahia Honda in response to tarpon presence,” said Casselberry. “Their daytime presence overlaps with angling pressure. I observed a 15 percent mortality rate [of hooked tarpon].” Casselberry’s tracking data also showed that hammerheads took up residence the longest in the Florida Keys from March to June. Each month saw increased resident hours from hammerheads until a decline occurred in July.  

Potential solutions to hammerhead attacks could be policy or management based, behavior based, or technology based (shark deterrents), said Casselberry. “For anglers, try to use heavier tackle to get that fight time under 9 minutes; be aware that the outgoing tide is when the hammerheads are most likely to be around; or try night fishing when hammerheads aren’t as active.”

Tarpon Numbers Trending Down

A recent UMass Amherst survey received answers from nearly 1,000 anglers and guides who target Atlantic tarpon. Tarpon are not part of any formal stock assessment, so talking to avid anglers is one of the best and only ways to get a pulse on the fishery. Overwhelmingly, respondents answered that the quality of the fishery has declined considerably since the 1970s.

Other results from the survey included:

• On average, guides lost 2 to 7 tarpon per year to sharks over the last five years.
• Respondents perceived water quality and habitat availability as the greatest threat to Atlantic tarpon; restoration efforts should be a top conservation priority.
• Respondents supported regulations that prohibit harvest of tarpon (such as catch-and-release only). 
• Respondents want increased science efforts to understand Atlantic tarpon ecology for conservation solutions.

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