Tide: 1.4ft at 8am, 1ft at 1pm
Tarpon was on the agenda yet again today. I launched the Ultimate at sunrise to catch the beautiful southwest Florida sunrise..we really do live in paradise! Anways there were quite a few smaller tarpon rolling early in the morning and I was fortunate enough to catch one with a Gulp on a jighead while blindcasting. This is not the only time this has happened as my dad hooked one the same way a week ago.
About 8am my dad meets me out there and we go straight to the spot we fished two days ago. The winds were calm but there was no surface activity. After soaking a bait for a while I get a run which turned out to be a lemon shark in the 7' range. He cruised by my kayak 5 minutes prior so it was just a matter of time before he found the bait. We moved spots after that in hopes of avoiding the sharks. A couple minutes go by and two guys in a gheenoe (or small boat) hook a tarpon and get three jumps before they lost it. Again, it was just a matter of time before we hooked up.
Five minutes later and the drag starts screaming on my Baitrunner 4500. The line cut across the water and the fish changed directions while the line kept going out..shark...or so we thought. About 15 seconds later of constant running a big tarpon goes airborne! I get excited (who wouldn't?), pull up anchor, stand up, and set the hook a few times to make sure the circle hook is embedded good. She jumped three more times within the first 30 seconds and then the fight began. These larger tarpon will test your equipment along with your pride..this fish reminded me of the large tarpon I caught back on April 12. After seeing the fish numerous times next to the Ultimate I knew it was a big fish. We had to go through quite a few hoops as this tarpon had all the tricks in the book but in the end we won. We took a lot of pics and revived the fish by forcing water through its gills via paddling. She kicked out of my hands and went back toward the depths. Each time I see one of these prehistoric monsters up close it gives me a new respect for them. What a great tarpon season this has been...and its not over yet!
