Sunday, August 05, 2007

The Resumption of Tarpon Summer....

Despite some auspicious signs and conditions in June, the tarpon season in Biscayne Bay had not materialized the way I'd hoped. That is, until now. I had a glass-calm morning this week that begged me to go scouting for tarpon- and, I did. In the half-light of early dawn, I found some medium and large tarpon rolling. I quickly jumped off a 40-pound fish. Within 10 minutes, I had another strike and up came a fish of 60 pounds greyhounding across the surface. I fought this fish quite hard and had him alongside my skiff for release within 10 minutes.

All of a sudden and like the proverbial light switch, the winds started breezing out of the southeast. Within 5 minutes the wind came up to a constant 15 m.p.h....and the tarpon stopped rolling, and, yup, stopped feeding, too. I've never been comfortable with winds and flats and/or bay fishing for tarpon during the day. I love the wind at night for them, especially under bridge shadows featuring a nocturnal push of topside crabs and shrimp. But, in the daylight hours, give me bathtub conditions.

I ran to another grassflats edge and managed to release a large ladyfish and small barracuda, but it was time to pack it in.

Jan

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