As you can tell from the beginning of the video, I spent this week chasing a lot of shadows, logs and large mullet stacking up under docks haha. I spent the majority of my time scouting areas that I’ve fished before and seeing how the fish were reacting to the current wind/water temperature. I probably spent 3-4 hours of my time just looking, before I even settled down and began to fish. My game plan was to wait until late morning/afternoon to see if the fish became more active has the sun warmed up the water. The best action for me ended up being around an hour before sunset.

At the start, during the late morning, I was on my trolling motor in the flats but did not see much bait action. I only saw one school of three redfish, that I ended up scaring off. As I moved into wind-protected areas, I noticed the water temperature was a few degrees warmer than the windblown bodies of water. It is here, that I found what I thought was the motherload of small snook stacked up under a dock but ended up being only big striped mullet. After I moved a few docks down, I finally found some fish that were biting. I caught three or four mangrove snapper on live shrimp on a weightless, 1/0 circle hook. Just as last week, the trick has been to cast a little past where you want the shrimp to be, and finesse bounce it into the zone that you think the fish are eating.

Tired of catching small snappers, I switched setups. I threw out a couple of live mullet on a 5/0 circle hook and a float. Personally, I like using floats to identify when the fish is getting too deep into the structure so I can pull them out and it also allows me to watch the exciting blow-ups. The first fish that came out to play, was what I believe to be a 30ish inch snook. Unfortunately, after the first pop, the fish were uninterested and decided to move on. I tossed the mullet back in, it was long before another fish took a strike at it but at the same time, it dehooked my fish and got away with a free meal. I had only one lone chunky mullet left and I sent it out to battle, with hopes that a predator fish would not miss again. My luck finally struck after what felt like minutes of a tarpon playing with its food. My patience paid off this time, as I did not reel down on the fish until I knew he had fully eaten the chunky mullet. After a respectable fight with the tarpon, I was able to bring the fish boat side and snap a few pictures. I didn’t measure the fish but I would say around the 32-34 inch mark. Overall all I was excited to be able to catch my second tarpon and in January no less! Looking forward to sharpening my tarpon skills as spring approaches, hopefully, sooner than later.

Spanky (=