Had a full day tarpon trip today. My angler really wanted to catch one even though he knew it wasn’t ‘season’. I told him there is always a shot at catching one here in islamorada as long as the weather is warm. We had recently had a cold front that dipped the temperatures in the backcountry. We saw a lot of bait around though not much activity from tarpon, usually with the ‘fall mullet run’ that was happening you often see tarpon busting them frequently. We fished in the morning around flamingo, saw a couple busting fish, but only had shark bites. I went out towards cape sable, we did not see much life in the canal. At the middle cape end there was plenty of bait, but no tarpon activity. I fished there for a bit without much of anything. So we ran down the beach and saw the big balls of black mullet pouring out with the tide. We did finally see some tarpon busting them, set up but only more shark bites. Finally the last spot we fished we had more sharks, and finally the last bait in the box we put out and hooked a big 120 lb tarpon. After a good fight we got the technical leader release before he popped off. As long as it stays fairly warm there should be some tarpon back there, but this is the last little window that you can expect to find them.
