Tarpon fished for a bit this morning on our full day trip. Left early at 6 AM and caught a bunch of mullet in the backcountry. We set up in one of the channels. After a little bit we hooked a nice 40 lb tarpon we landed. After that though not much else for tarpon action. Tried one other spots. Plenty of sharks. After that we went snapper and snook fishing and had a great day. Day off tomorrow, woohoo!
Today I had a nice family out and we gave the tarpon a try for a bit while doing some other things too. I had some mullet from a couple days ago still on good ice and we fished with those. First thing this morning we caught the last bit of outgoing tide. It did not fall as long as I thought it would, but we had a good half hour. Did not really see any fish for sure though and no bites. We did other things that were very productive, lots of trout and snapper, and a bunch of snook we got on some fresh pilchards we caught. Then in the afternoon we gave it a try for tarpon again. I found some mullet but they were tricky to catch so we fished with the last few baits I had and hooked a nice 80 lb fish within 10 minutes. My young angler landed him and that was a great end to the day. Unfortunately he did not cooperate for a boatside picture and I didn’t get any jumping shots.
Back to tarpon fishing today. We caught mullet in the backcountry around some islands first things. Got a good crack on them about 4 dozen or so. We fished a channel close by, tide had just started in. We saw a few fish roll and after a little bit we were hooked up. We caught 2 out of 4 fish, mostly smaller fish in the 30-40 lb range, but a tarpon is a tarpon! We got some sharks too. After that we caught some dinner, mangrove snappers, and some more sharks. We tried another channel for the last hour and got a nice big tarpon of almost 100 lbs, plus a couple big sting rays. Nice end to the day, 3 for 5 tarpon. The summer everglades tarpon fishing is getting better.
