TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Giant tarpon are out there

Photo courtesy of NICK WINGER

Captain Lori Deaton of Apollo Beach revives her giant tarpon caught on the edge of Boca Grande Pass.

ADVERTISEMENT

By FRANK SARGEANT

Tribune correspondent

Published: June 13, 2009

Updated: 06/14/2009 12:19 pm

Catching a fish bigger than you are might seem like an impossible dream to many, but right now throughout the Bay area, savvy anglers are doing just that on a daily basis, often in water only a few hundred yards off the beach.

The annual run of tarpon is in full swing from Homosassa to the Florida Keys, and some who have fished the run for decades say there are more big fish this year than at any time in recent memory.

"I've never seen the numbers of 200 pounds and up fish that are around this year," said captain Scott Moore, who has been fishing the runs for more than 30 years. "I've caught them, my son has caught them, they got two over 200 in the pro tourney last weekend, and a lot of the guides both on Tampa Bay and at Boca Grande are getting these giant fish."

Moore said many of the biggest fish are proving to be too much for the standard tackle used by most beach fishermen these days.

"If you hook up with a fish over 200 on 50-pound braid and a big spinning outfit, you just can't pull it out of the school," Moore said. "We've had a number of those big fish get back into their schools and then the other fish cut them off, so it can be a real challenge."

Moore advises anglers looking for big fish to check Egmont Pass and Southwest Pass at the mouth of Tampa Bay, as well as the beaches from Anna Maria southward.

"There have been west winds for the last several weeks that make it tough to see the fish on the beach, but they are there," Moore said. "If the weather settles down and we get the normal east breeze or calm winds in the morning, people are going to see a lot more of these fish and get a lot more hookups."

Moore said the best way for people new to tarpon fishing to connect is to get out about 100 yards off the beach by 7 a.m., shut down their outboard and wait for the fish.

"You can see them rolling a quarter-mile away if we get calm seas," Moore said. "The trick is to get yourself in front of them without running the outboard - either pole or use an electric motor, and then just sit quiet and let them come to you."

Moore said the best baits are live threadfins, scaled sardines or pass crabs. Most anglers fish these on extra-strong 5/0 to 7/0 live-bait hooks and 80- to 100-pound test hard monofilament or fluorocarbon leader 6 to 8 feet long.

"If you can cracker cast with a cork, that's the best way to keep tabs on what your bait is doing, and then you'll know when you get a strike," Moore said. (A "cracker cast" is made by circling the rod in a loop around the shoulders, usually done from a boat tower.) "Free-line bait is easier to cast, but you may not see the fish take, and it's also possible to get a fish jumping right into the boat if you don't know where that bait is."

Why so many big fish are being caught this year is anybody's guess, but one good bet is these fish are the result of the virtual end to tarpon harvest beginning in 1989, when the state put a required $50 tag in place to kill a tarpon. Before that, some 4,000 fish per year were being killed on the west coast; today, that number is less than 100. And tarpon are known to live some 50 years, so many of today's 200-pounders are fish that would not be there if the harvest had continued.

Tarpon are known to reach weights of more than 250 pounds, and the all-tackle record is 283 pounds, but nearly all fish recorded in that range have come from the Atlantic Coast of Africa. However, with Florida's growing larger, it's a good bet that somebody soon will soon catch one approaching world-record size somewhere between Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor. Of course, given the all-release mentality, that fish might never be weighed, but just knowing it might be out there will inspire a new generation of anglers.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT