The best Florida saltwater anglers know how to follow the fish. A hotspot one day might be barren the next when fish are on the move. Migratory fish urges set in once autumn arrives, and depending on the Florida species, cooling waters can trigger fish to scatter along the coast, or even offshore. Both resident and highly migratory species are involved. 

The home bodies — such as spotted seatrout, redfish and snook — don’t go far. Popular beach runners such as pompano, Spanish mackerel and bluefish are the long-range travelers that come from northern waters. They follow their preferred water temperatures into Florida when fall arrives. Still, surf casters can tell you these three species are available year-round in Florida waters in limited numbers. 

Water temperature is the main driver for all of the aforementioned fish movement. However, forage availability (which is tied to not only water temperature, but to salinity and habitat changes) also has a bearing on when fish move and where they go. 

When Gamefish Move from Open Waters to Backwaters

Years ago, I learned how seasonal changes affect fish in the Ten Thousand Islands area on Florida’s Gulf Coast. I quickly learned enough of the territory to know the difference between the “inside” and the “outside” waters. Inside was from a line roughly halfway between the open Gulf of Mexico and the mainland creeks that lead deep into the Everglades’ freshwaters. Outside meant from that same point out to the open Gulf. 

My favorite spring and summertime grass flats on the Gulf side became devoid of the specks by late December once cold fronts came through twice a week. I lucked into tight schools of them around oyster bars of the inside bays. Severe January cold snaps forced them into the salty mangrove-lined creeks and rivers of the mainland. 

The same was true about red drum and snook. During September and October, the two species were commonplace around the outside islands and oyster bars on the edge of the Gulf. But when it cooled down, they moved deep into the backcountry. And they did not come out until April, unless winter was mild. Those migrations are very short, but unmistakable.  

Moving from Flats to Offshore Waters

Florida Bay might have the best summertime inshore mangrove snapper fishery in the state, mostly over grass in 5 to 8 feet of water. It peaks in late summer, but by November, most of the fish of legal size move out to deeper water, on both the Gulf and the nearshore Atlantic reefs off the Keys. The void they leave is quickly filled by hordes of Spanish mackerel, cobia and pompano that originate in Panhandle waters. Those fish stay until May, before heading north, and the snapper return. 

Gamefish Head South for the Winter

Pompano — officially Florida pompano — are sensitive to water temperature fluctuations. I chase them both in the surf with bait and surf gear and with fly rods when they enter the Indian River Lagoon. By January, chances are the water temperatures from Hobe Sound north may fall below 63 degrees F, and that triggers them to move south en masse.

Though it’s been on the mild side in recent years, I recall a handful of seasons when the pomps vanished from their normal spots, so I scouted waters as far south as West Palm Beach. The beaches there were swarming with pompano. A 5-degree water temperature difference was the key. 

Biscayne Bay bonefish are a perfect example of a fish on the move. Autumn water temperatures are ideal, so October and November see lots of hungry fish on the flats — both on the mainland and oceanside. But a cold December through February sends them to primarily the Atlantic oceanside flats, or into deeper water such as nearshore patch reefs. 

Inside Tip: Bonefish are known to “huddle up” in schools of hundreds and head south to the Keys to find the warmest water possible. 

Fish Ranges Expanding Due to Climate Change? 

Florida anglers are continually reporting catches of saltwater species farther north of their typical range, and just recently, multiple tarpon were spotted by anglers as far north as Maryland’s northern Chesapeake Bay. An occasional sighting has happened over the years, but this summer’s numbers are impressive. Warming Atlantic waters allow for this, and many biologists and anglers think climate change is the trigger. This is strictly migratory behavior — the tarpon must head back south as winter approaches, or they perish. 

Florida snook are creeping northward into the Florida Big Bend. On the Gulf coast, snook typically ranged to Tarpon Springs, but by 2020 they were encountered in the Suwannee River, 80 miles to the north. Since that time, state wildlife researchers are hearing reports of the popular linesiders in the Florida Panhandle. The term “neo-native” applies to snook, and any fish species native to a particular region, but is expanding to nearby regions because of climate shifts, such as fewer hard freezes in winter. 

Like tarpon, snook can’t withstand prolonged cold weather. In fact, snook typically die in water less than 50 degrees after more than a few days. You have to wonder if any snook in the Florida Panhandle have actually survived a winter? There was a small snook kill in 2018 around Crystal River, where snook were not present years ago. Three nights of freezing weather killed them. 

And it’s no secret that the peacock bass, a tropical fish first released in South Florida canals and lakes to control other invasive species, are now flourishing in waterways as far north as Boynton Beach. The original northern range was northern Palm Beach County, with the epicenter of the population being Dade and Broward counties on the east coast. Gulf side, it was mostly Everglades waters, and Collier and Lee counties. 

Peacock bass do not tolerate water temperatures under 60 degrees, though they have survived cold snaps in some of the deeper canals. Considering a recent string of warm winters, without hard freezes south of Orlando, it’s anyone’s guess how far peacock bass will push north.

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Striped Bass: 81 pounds, 14 ounces

• Gregory Myerson
• Long Island Sound, Connecticut
• August, 4 2011

Who better to ask about the next World Record striped bass than the current record holder. It’s been over a decade since Greg Myerson caught one of the world’s most famous fish and he’s ready to set the next mark. “If they ever lift the slot limit, I’ll catch the next world record, too,” he says. His boasts aren’t hot air, Myerson holds the several striped bass records and striper tournament trophies. Myerson credits the deep ocean bottom and strong tidal currents off Connecticut and Rhode Island for bringing a steady stream of bait and big bass. “Big bass don’t like to move a lot so they are looking for a live lobster.” Myerson even predicts how the next world record bass will be caught; he has developed a rattling sinker that imitates the sound of a startled lobster. “The fish hears the sound and comes to investigate, that’s where he finds my eel.”

Red Drum: 94 pounds 2 ounces

• David Deuel
• Avon, North Carolina
• November 07, 1984

Forty years ago, Frank Folb was working at the tackle shop that weighed the World Record red drum. Today, Folb has retired from tackle shops and taken up gardening, but he remembers the day the world’s biggest red drum was hanging from the scale. “Gosh, it was a fat fish,” he recalls. He says David Deuel fought the trophy drum down the Hatteras Island beach almost a mile before landing it. Due to the current slot limit on redfish, the red drum record will most likely never be broken. Back in the heyday of beach drum fishing, Folb rigged up a mobile scale to weigh a potential record on the beach. “We never had a fish large enough to break the mark,” he says. Folb has heard credible stories of redfish passing the length and girth test, but the fish were released. Despite the difficulty in setting a red drum record, Folb believes a 100-pound redfish is swimming somewhere off the Virginia or North Carolina coast.

Common Snook: 53 pounds, 10 ounces

• Gilbert Ponzi
• Parismina Ranch, Costa Rica
• October 18, 1978

The oldest record on the list is one of the most coveted. While Florida accounts for the largest population of snook anglers, Costa Rica holds the all tackle world record. Stuart-based Capt. Mike Holliday has landed snook up to 40 pounds, but beating the record in his home waters is almost impossible to imagine. “The next record will come from Costa Rica,” he says. Holliday explains the warm Latin American climate allows the snook to feed year-round and reach extraordinary size. Why hasn’t a bigger fish been caught in Costa Rica? Holliday says the fish in the 1970s and 80s were bigger. “People used to brag about the 40-pound club, now they brag about the 40-inch club.” Once again, fishing regulations are the biggest obstacle to breaking the record. Slot limits throughout the snook’s range keep the record safe from American anglers.

Spotted Seatrout: 17 pounds, 7 ounces

• Craig F. Carson
• Ft. Pierce, Florida
• May 11, 1995

Capt. Mike Holliday has personal experience with the World Record spotted sea trout. “I interviewed the guy who caught it,” he remembers. The long-time contributor to local and nationwide publications was on the beat when the fish was caught. “Craig Carson was visiting from Daytona and caught the fish on a Zara Spook off Dynamite Point.” Even though he didn’t witness the weigh-in or see the actual fish, looking at photos of the catch gives Holliday suspicions. “It doesn’t look like a 17-pound trout,” he insists. And the angler weighed the fish on a grocery store scale. And then there’s the incredible size. Holliday shakes his head, “I’ve never heard of a trout even close to 17 pounds.” The speckled trout record has stood for almost 30 years and Holliday thinks it will never be broken. “I’ve fished the same area for decades and caught one fish over 13 pounds,” he says.

Tarpon: 286 pounds, 9 ounces

• Max Domecq Rubane
• Guinea-Bissou
• March, 4 2003

Close your eyes and picture a 300-pound tarpon jumping through the air, diving under the boat and rolling on the line and you’ll understand the difficulty in breaking the silver king’s world-record mark. Zack Bellipigna, angler recognition manager at IGFA, is confident the record can be broken. “As sure as I’m sitting in my chair, there is a 300-pound tarpon swimming off the coast of Africa right now,” he insists. Bellipigna attributes the long-standing record to a lack of angler interest. “Hardcore tarpon anglers are more interested in setting line-class records in the Keys or along the Gulf Coast than going to Africa and catching a giant tarpon.” Bellipigna says IGFA’s Grand Slam awards are also seeing a lot of interest. “Catching a tarpon and two other trophy species in one day is a hell of an achievement but it is achievable.” Still, many of the line class records pale in comparison to the massive 286-pound beast.

The post Waiting for a World Record 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.

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.

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.

The post Hammerhead Sharks Versus Tarpon appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

The untamed wilderness of labyrinthine rivers, creeks and bays that ­constitute Everglades National Park’s backcountry can be as intimidating as it is sublime. Despite their tricky navigation, these waters offer both amazing fishing and peace from South Florida’s concrete jungle just an hour away. It’s where you’ll find me in my skiff as often as I can get away, through winter and into spring, hunting for treasure — 100-pound ingots of living silver — the mighty tarpon. A friend introduced me to this world-class fishery in the late 1990s, and ever since, it has been an obsession of mine.

A high point in these years of obsession came during a recent January when Carl Ball (a charter captain out of Miami) and I found the mother lode of tarpon.

We left the Flamingo ramp at Buttonwood Creek, cleared Coot Bay and Tarpon Creek and, within 20 minutes, were hooked up to chrome‑plated ballistic missiles in Whitewater Bay.

A single tarpon had given up its location when its mirrored back reflected the sunlight piercing through the mangrove treetops. Pitching plugs about the same size as Carl’s half-smoked Cohiba on what could serve as bass-fishing tackle was the game. We jumped a dozen silver kings, mostly in the 80- to 100-pound range, landing four in two hours of fishing before we changed gears to target snook in the deeper recesses of the Glades.

Exploring the Maze
It’s never easy figuring out a fishery, especially one that takes place within a maze. The vastness of the Everglades is overwhelming (offering visitors a reminder just how insignificant we really are). The place can’t be tamed but learned only slowly through hard work and persistence.

The latest GPS technology offers anglers the chance to navigate these waters in ways never available to early pioneers. My Raymarine Axiom 9 chart plotter with Navionics Platinum+ satellite imagery opened wilderness doors when that chart chip became available in 2007. Having the benefit of satellite imagery in a GPS provides a bird’s-eye view for navigating and also offers an effective tool when trying to find lee shores on windy days. I wouldn’t venture there without it.

Even with such electronics, I file a float plan with family or friends before fishing the Glades. A current, registered, personal ACR ResQLink personal locator beacon or Garmin inReach Explorer satellite communicator is also a plus in case of emergency. There’s no TowBoatUSA or SeaTow to help you.

As an angler who fishes these waters, I’ve learned much by chatting with seasoned guides who obviously share the same passion for the park and its tarpon. Capt. Steve Tejera specializes in fishing the backcountry 200-plus days a year. Tarpon can be found all year in the many rivers, creeks, back bays, shallow mud flats, basins, mangrove shorelines and around oyster bars. Still, Tejera feels that knowing in which areas he’ll find tarpon during certain conditions and times of the year greatly improves his catch stats.

Seasonal Strategies
“During the winter months, from December through March, 100-pound-class tarpon can be plentiful in the backcountry,” Tejera says. When water temperatures rise between cold fronts, you can expect the tarpon to be active, according to Tejera. The tarpon funnel into the large back bays such as Whitewater, Tarpon and Broad River, moving in from the Gulf looking for stable, warm ­freshwater environments.

In cold, northerly winds, the fish move out of these bays or hunker down on the bottom and get lockjaw, but after a window of three or four days of warmer southeasterlies, especially after a cold front, the fishing can light up in those places, Tejera says.

When temperatures remain mild for long periods during February and March, coupled with winds from a generally easterly direction, the fish move from back bays to the outside capes — East Cape, Middle Cape and Northwest Cape, and also out in front of Flamingo.

Still longer periods of stable weather with water temperatures in the magic 72-to-74-degree range might create the perfect situation for laid-up fish, a spectacle that has to be witnessed firsthand to believe. Tarpon lying motionless in the upper part of the water column can be discerned by a telltale golden smudge a few inches below the surface. If you can distinguish the fish’s head from its tail, throwing a plug or soft-plastic jerkbait can end up in a tug-of-war of epic proportions. When things are really good, you might see the tips of tarpons’ dorsal and tail fins above the water’s surface. Witnessing scenes like this that will get any angler’s heart racing.

Around March and April, the fish begin staging near river mouths and open bays to begin their migrations to spawn in the Keys, Tejera says. That’s also around the time cold fronts dwindle. From May through June and into July, the fish can be intercepted as they advance to the south in packs or strings over the cleaner-water banks — First National Bank, Sandy Key Basin and Oxfoot Bank.

From August through November, the bights — Snake, Garfield and Rankin — consistently hold fish in 5-to-20-pound range. “Out front is better in the summertime,” says Tejera of Florida Bay. “The back bays heat up quicker, and it’s typically too hot for tarpon.” He believes they relocate out into Snake Bight Channel and Tin Can Channel and in all the large basins between shallow mud flats. “In late November and December when baitfish are thick, fun-size 40- to 50-pounders move into the channels and will even venture up on the flats,” he says.

Fish ‘Em Like Salmon
“West wind makes fishing the park tough,” Tejera says. “The water becomes turbid, and tarpon roll less because there might be more oxygen in the water.” When cool northern winds ­associated with an approaching cold front shut things down, he changes gears and targets snook and redfish. If they’re not blowing too hard, consistent ­southeasterly breezes are always a blessing.

The search for giant tarpon in such a vast place can range from minutes to hours. Start searching early because they roll less when the sun rises overhead or wind picks up. Rollers and free-jumpers offer obvious tarpon signs, but so do diving seagulls and nervous baitfish schools. “If you find tarpon rolling in a river, you never want to idle your skiff against the current because they’ll feel your ­pressure wave,” says Capt. Bob LeMay (954-435-5666, lemaymiami@aol.com). He fishes the tarpon in rivers the same way he fishes for Alaska’s salmon, observing where they are and casting up-current from them, starting his retrieve only when the plug reaches that zone.

For gear that can cast plugs all day but still handle 100-pound fish, I prefer a 7-foot-2-inch medium-heavy Shimano Terez Waxwing. It has something of the look and feel of a bass-fishing rod but is actually designed for large pelagic species. You want a rod that will handle 30- to 50-pound braided line. (I used this same rod to haul in a 200-pound-class yellowfin tuna on a popper at Hannibal Bank, Panama.)

Hurling plugs as far as you can in wide-open bays requires a reel that has sufficient line capacity yet balances well with the lightweight rod. For example, a Shimano Stradic STC5000 is a good fit, with good line capacity for 30-pound braid, plenty of drag and a fast gear ratio.

“Keep the rod tip low when fighting tarpon,” Tejera advises. “The rod tip down in the water creates drag on the line and resistance on the hook to help keep it lodged. Since tarpon stay near the surface for most fights, I tell my clients to keep the rod tip down, and if the fish jumps, don’t bow; relax your wrist to maintain light resistance with no slack. Bowing to them takes too much pressure off the hook, and more times than not, the fish eventually jumps off that way,” he says.

Lure Picks ‘n’ Tricks
In scientific terms, tarpon have a superior lower jaw, best described as a massive underbite. Because their lower jaw extends far beyond their gape, tarpon excel at hunting prey at or above eye level. Additionally, the extremely bony mouth of these prehistoric fish makes them challenging to consistently hook and land.

In fact, a study done in 2004 by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission showed that only 37 percent of hooked tarpon actually made it to the boat. Having experienced similar results, I’ve learned a couple of tactics to help keep the odds in my favor.

Since the standard treble hooks found on most lures are not designed for big tarpon, I change out the hooks.

One strategy is to use size 2 Mustad KVD Elite Triple Grip trebles, size 1 VMC 4X Model 9626, or Owner Stinger 4X ST-66 trebles. I also sharpen them with a stone and mash their barbs slightly to improve penetration.

You can change out trebles to stronger versions (such as Mustad KVD Elite Triple Grips, VMC 9626 4X or Owner Stinger ST-66 4X, generally in a size 2). However, a better tactic — which helps keep tarpon hooked longer and is better for the fish — calls for replacing trebles with 2/0 VMC 7237CB in-line single X-strong large-ring hooks. In-line singles hold better, allowing more drag pressure with less chance of straightening, and are much safer when landing tarpon for fish and angler.

Slow-sinking and suspending plugs produce more bites for me than straight-up sinking lures. Plugs such as MirrOlure’s Catch 2000 and MirrOdine XXL are my go-to choices. The black-back fluorescent-orange-belly pattern (808 color) works well mornings and evenings when the light is low. With the sun high and bright, I switch to lighter MirrOlure patterns in silver (S color), mullet (21 color) or chartreuse (CFPR and CH colors). Tejera prefers darker colors like black and purple in stained water. He also likes the slow-sinking Egret Baits Vudu Mullet that stands up well to the abuse of multiple fish fights. These are made of TPE — thermoplastic elastomers, a much stronger plastic polymer used in many new lure designs.

Rapala’s new X-Rap Twitchin’ Mullet in bone-chartreuse, mullet and mangrove-minnow patterns has proved highly effective for big tarpon in the backcountry. The lure has a slow sink rate and wide, twitching, walk-the-dog swimming action, and comes standard with high-quality 2/0 in-line VMC hooks. Other great choices include the suspending Shimano Waxwing, Bomber Long-A and Badonk-A-Donk, and the suspending LiveTarget Mullet Twitchbait.

Read Next: Fishing for Tarpon

“If I had a personal choice for tarpon, I’d throw big soft plastics on single hooks over plugs,” says well-known Flamingo guide Capt. Benny Blanco. “We’re all more conservation-minded now, and treble hooks are simply not good for any catch-and-release fishery.” In water no more than 4 feet deep, Blanco has his clients pitch unweighted Saltwater Assassin S.W. Shad and Hogy 7-inch plastic jerkbaits with heavy-duty 4/0 or 5/0 Mustad KVD Grip-Pin soft-plastic hooks. If the fish run deeper, Blanco puts the baits on a jig head or on ¼- to ½-ounce weighted Mustad Grip-Pin worm hooks.

“While the long-term effects on the park’s ecology remain to be seen post-Hurricane Irma (2017), I do see positive signs,” Blanco says. He believes the storm helped clear out silt brought in from earlier hurricanes, and in many areas pushed out the decaying sea grass from the die-off a year prior. December 2017 offered some of the best tarpon bites Blanco can remember, with multiple days hooking 20 or more tarpon. “It was truly magical,” Blanco says.

About the Author
Adrian Gray began fishing in South Africa, where he was born. He’s now the creative designer for the International Game Fish Association, responsible for publication design, photography, digital media, Web, art/illustration and editorial content, and contributes photos to a number of popular ­magazines, including Sport Fishing.

The post Find and Catch Tarpon Deep in Florida’s Backcountry appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Videographer Paul Dabill shares a look here beneath the surface, and shows us that Jupiter Inlet is a very busy place in its depths, too. His video reveals surprising numbers of predatory game fish — snook (in massive schools), cubera snapper, tarpon and goliath grouper.

Check out more of his work on Instagram, @pauldabill.

The post Jupiter Inlet: Florida’s Amazing Natural Aquarium appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Tarpon in the City!

On September 6, 2017 the eye of hurricane Irma passed about 60 miles to the north of Puerto Rico. The damage caused in parts of the island was extensive, especially to the national electrical grid. Then just a few weeks later on September 20th, hurricane Maria made a direct hit on Puerto Rico, devastating the island and plunging all of its 3.4 million residents into a desperate humanitarian crisis.

Fast-forward to May 2018 when I led a group of eight anglers on a trip for tarpon fishing in Puerto Rico (where I had last fished in 2016). During the short drive from the airport to the lodge, I was delighted to see such resilience on display, with so much of the island back up and running.

We concentrated on targeting tarpon throughout the urban estuaries of Torrecilla and San Juan lagoons. In addition to tarpon, our group of spin-fishermen and fly-rodders caught snook, both common and the rarely-seen tarpon snook, plus barracuda, ladyfish and jacks.

The anglers in the group fishing bait enjoyed truly amazing fishing. Each day they fished they caught numerous tarpon in the 50-to 100-plus pound range, with at least one 150-pounder hooked, jumped and lost. Tarpon fishing in Puerto Rico is truly of the world’s great fisheries, and I’m already looking forward to my next visit.

To see more trips like this and many all over the world, visit Dave Lewis Worldwide Fishing. Lewis is the author of two photo-heavy books on global fishing adventures.

Trips to the Tarpons Nest Lodge are organized by Caribbean Fishing Adventures.

Tarpon Lurk Under the Mangroves

Trying to Get a Handle on a Big Tarpon

Casting for Live Bait

Runway Fishing

Putting the Brakes on a Tarpon

Boatside Tarpon Goes Ballistic

Tarpon Rasslin’

Best Fish of the Day

Stunt Fighter of the Sky Wheels Over San Juan Lagoons

Tight Quarters

Silver King on Fly

Snook Abound as Well

Tarpon’s Nest Lodge

The Photographer in Action

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Scientists are listening to fish.

No, not like some piscine therapists hoping to solve adolescent crises. Scientists are using underwater receivers to listen to sonar signals transmitted from a wide variety of acoustically tagged fish species. And this is happening throughout coastal waters of the Southeast Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.

In late March, three scientists studying tarpon, tripletail and cobia presented some of their Southeast regional findings to a group of more than 15 fishing guides and interested anglers at south Georgia’s Cabin Bluff corporate retreat on the Cumberland River, about 10 miles north of the Georgia/Florida border.

Cabin Bluff has worked with the Florida-based Bonefish & Tarpon Trust organization for the last two years to acoustically tag tarpon through research trips and local release tournaments. Lucas Griffin, a Ph.D. student working with BTT, presented current tarpon results, encouraged guide input and solicited support for summer tarpon tagging.

Lucas was joined by Chris Kalinowsky and Ryan Harrell from the Coastal Resources Division of Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources. Kalinowsky presented local and regional tripletail studies and cobia results from acoustic tagging.

Tarpon Migrations

Of the 50 tarpon tagged since the BTT study began in 2016, 11 fish came from Georgia waters; the rest were captured in Florida or South Carolina. Griffin explained that fish of virtually any age can be acoustically tagged because the devices come in a range of sizes and are tucked into the fish’s abdominal cavity using a small incision.

Tarpon are considered “vulnerable” as a species: They’re long-lived, thriving up to about 80 years old, and they mature late — at 7 to 12 years old. Data have been poor because tarpon fishing is purely recreational.

Scientists don’t know exactly where tarpon spawn, but they have identified significant population hubs in Mexico, the northern Gulf of Mexico, West Florida and Southeast Florida. Now they want to know the connectivity between possible spawning locations and where the fish migrate or take up residence, Griffin says.

Sounds of Science

Once a fish is acoustically tagged, it’s like a swimming sound machine, transmitting sonar pings at a frequency of 69 kHz. Scientists from a variety of entities throughout the Southeast and Gulf have deployed more than 2,000 listening receivers by anchoring the footlong devices to the sea floor or deploying them from sea buoys. These autonomous devices do what humans can’t — listen 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Scientists in South Florida dive to retrieve the receivers and download the data once a year. Georgia scientists have averaged three dive trips a year to retrieve and redeploy receivers.

Griffin showed several documented migrations. One 55-pound tarpon swam 1,100 miles in 52 days, averaging 21 miles a day. Many fish appear to travel north in summer and south in winter, but others defy that path. BTT has also started looking at permit migrations, which has resulted in a change in seasonal protection for the fish, which swim to offshore wrecks and reefs to spawn as early as April.

Tripletail Tagging

Off Georgia, where Kalinowsky is listening, 24 receivers line up like gates from near the beach to 12 miles offshore. Each receiver has a listening range of about 400 meters. Thus far, he’s detected 662 individual animals from 33 different species, including tripletail and cobia — his target species — but also red drum, white sharks, sea turtles, and Atlantic sturgeon.

In fact, his acoustic pilot program began in 2009 as a pilot study of tripletail site fidelity in Georgia’s Ossabaw estuary. It evolved into a larger study on the temporal and spatial distribution of Atlantic sturgeon in nearshore waters.

From that single-estuary study has blossomed the nearshore listening arrays and evidence that tripletail migrate to Cape Canaveral and South Florida as the water cools toward fall, and swim up as far as South Carolina in summertime.

Cobia Tagging

The cobia-tagging study launched as a result of changes in fisheries management, and a ruling that divided cobia into two stocks of fish — one swimming throughout Florida and the Gulf and the other that ranges from Georgia northward. The study involves a collaboration between scientists from South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

Kalinowsky says the data will be presented this month to the Atlantic Cobia stock-identification workshop (for the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council). State representatives attending will discuss whether the current boundaries remain appropriate. The study and preliminary results have spurred North Carolina and Virginia to pursue grants to tag and document their fish.

While these studies have just begun to produce important data, they hold promise for better understanding the movements and habits of important game fish. Unlike hyper-expensive satellite tags that pop off after three to five weeks and only work with larger fish, acoustic tags have a five-year battery life and can track juveniles as well as adults.

For more information about these programs, contact Mark Rehbein at BTT or Chris Kalinowsky at the Coastal Resources Division of Georgia’s DNR.

The post Tarpon, Tripletail and Cobia Acoustic Tagging Update appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.

Coral Gables, Florida — Maverick Boat Group, builders of the Maverick brand of flats skiffs, announced it is sponsoring a major new research program by Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, which is looking into mysteries of tarpon movement and habitat use to help ensure conservation of the valuable tarpon fishery.

The Tarpon Acoustic Tagging Program is a five-year study using acoustic telemetry to identify tarpon movement patterns and important habitats. It capitalizes on a large network consisting of thousands of acoustic receivers stretching across the Gulf of Mexico and along the coastline of the southeastern United States. This array of receivers will monitor the movements of some 50 tarpon tagged as part of the program.

Maverick, a longtime partner of BTT, extends its leadership support as signature sponsor of the new program through a marketing agreement with BTT. For every Maverick Boat sold, the company will donate a portion of the proceeds to the non-profit organization.

“It’s impossible to fully protect a migratory species without knowing where it travels throughout its full life cycle. This innovative program unlocks some of those mysteries and we’re proud to be a part of it and a partner with BTT,” said Charlie Johnson, director of marketing for Maverick Boat Group.

“The tarpon fishery in Florida is an important part of the state’s multi-billion recreational angling industry, and conserving it is central to BTT’s mission,” said Jim McDuffie, BTT executive director.

“The first step in ensuring that our conservation efforts are successful is to understand how tarpon move in our local waters as well as at long distances. This study will help us understand if tarpon in different locations are part of the same population, which will inform our conservation action at scale. We appreciate Maverick’s leadership and support of the program.”

The post New Acoustic Tagging Program Gains Maverick as Sponsor appeared first on Sport Fishing Mag.