kurt tarpon

The wind and seas kept boats under 35ft from getting out to the blue water, but I crushed it inshore. It was mostly last minute trips with a busy schedule. In total, I caught a 40lb tarpon, jumped a few smaller, a 48 inch red, a 31 inch red, and missed several large trout. The only thing I didn’t find was the snook.

30-60lb tarpon are still biting in the same spots as last week. Fish calm mornings near the ICW channel. Find them rolling and cast 6-10 inch mullet ahead of them. Most these fish are caught in reasonable time by using medium to heavy spinning gear with 4000-6000 size reels, 20-30lb braid, 40-60lb leader, and 4/0-8/0 circle hooks. There occasionally are some 100 lb tarpon, and what I mentioned is too light for that.

With brown tide and green algae gone in some places, the mangroves have been fishy. Thousands of mullet are on some flats. Big trout, decent size reds, and finally a few black drum have been seen near the mangroves. Skip small soft plastics or fish fingerling mullet, and you will catch fish. The key is finding water that is not light brown or dirty green. Sight fishing opportunities would exist if the water level was not so ridiculously high. It’s over the bank in some parts of the IRL.

I look forward to possibly getting offshore Friday, so fingers crossed the forecast holds. As always, practice catch and release in the lagoon, and be extremely careful with the bull reds since they are the future of our lagoon.