Tarpon season is in full swing and it doesn't get anymore exciting. It's no wonder I wait every year for it to happen, large schools of roaming tarpon patrolling the beaches and open waters of Tampa Bay. I love it when I ease up to the first pod of tarpon rolling on the surface early in the morning, clear blue water, I can see them as they make their way toward my fishermen's bait from atop my tower. As they make their final approach I yell down "get ready", "get ready", any minute and ka-boom the cork goes flying under and as I do every morning I yell "set the hook". If the hook buries all hell breaks loose as flying tarpon breaks the morning silence landing back into the water like a cannon ball. Even if they are late on the hook set, and nothing happens, it doesn't rattle me too much. I know it's just a few more casts before that scenario repeats itself and we stick the hook in one.
Tarpon fishing has been great this year, since the day the wind stop blowing steadily out of the west, around the middle of May. The only way to describe it is, we have been killing them! There are fish everywhere, maybe more than I have ever seen. We have been consistently landing; I mean actually putting our hands on 2 to 4 tarpon a day. Ten plus bites everyday and half a dozen plus hook ups everyday. On some of the best days we have landed 5 tarpon and leave them biting. When you factor in how long a tarpon takes to land it pretty much leads to constant action all day. Honestly we have had only one or two days since the tarpon hit the beach that we haven't landed a fish. I guarantee it wasn't because we didn't have multiple hook ups those days. We've had lots of double hook ups, and really I don't even try for them because it makes for lots of confusion in the boat. We even had one triple hook up where everyone got hit at exactly the same time. I couldn't even pull the 80 pound leaders out of that tangled mess. What can you do when you have 3 one-hundred ponders leaping all at the same time? Yesterday was very exciting; we had a double on and landed the first fish, a 100 plus ponder. Then we landed the second fish which turned out to be the largest for the year, a solid 200 pounds. We then landed two others and headed in early at 2pm with a boat full of burnt out arms. The 200 pounder battled for 2 hours, longer than I like to fight them for, but the drag couldn't be any tighter. I like to beat them in half an hour, but for some fish it's just not possible. The giant silver king did swim away strong and healthy despite the long battle.
Well that's how it's been so far. It should last like this till around the end of July, as far as sight fishing for the migrating tarpon is concerned. We do have some bay fishing for resident tarpon after that, but my favorite time of the year is the three magical months, May, June, & July.
I still have a few dates available and if you come we' all catch them. Until next time, I hope you have enjoyed my report.