My Dad joined me on a three day trip to Flamingo over the weekend on the hunt for tarpon. Finding tarpon was most definitely not a problem. The numbers of fish were somewhere between incredible and obscene. However, the fish were not particularly "happy" and there wasn't much feeding activity at all. I'm going to blame it on the high pressure system (that incredibly persistent S/SE wind over the weekend sucked BTW), but who knows. Regardless, we had our fair share of tarpon action. We put somewhere between 15-20 fish in the air over what amounted to about two full days worth of fishing. The most bites came on a DOA Baitbuster (trolling model), but we also jumped fish on little 3" shadtails, and put several in the air on topwaters (Skitterwalks and Chug Bugs). There were some absolutely huge tarpon in the mix, the kind that leave 100lbs in the dust, and way larger than I'm interested in catching. I think we actually only leadered one fish, which was probably the smallest fish of the trip (40lbs or so). The others jumped off, broke off, jumped up in the bushes, etc. Honestly, catching them is way secondary to the initial bite and jumps.
We spent a little bit of time looking for snook and other species. That wasn't particularly successful, although the nice snapper were plentiful on jigs fished around structure. Pops also stuck a 9lb tripletail blind-casting near a river mouth. That was a nice surprise.
Camping conditions were hot and sticky. It honestly felt like summertime. Speaking of which, the skeeters must have thought it was August, because there were serious. I've spent a lot of time in the Glades, and I don't ever recall them being this thick in April. Ought to keep the fair weather crowd away and make a for a great summer of fishing
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We took a few pictures and videos. The tarpon pics are screen grabs from the videos, so they aren't the best quality.
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We spent a little bit of time looking for snook and other species. That wasn't particularly successful, although the nice snapper were plentiful on jigs fished around structure. Pops also stuck a 9lb tripletail blind-casting near a river mouth. That was a nice surprise.
Camping conditions were hot and sticky. It honestly felt like summertime. Speaking of which, the skeeters must have thought it was August, because there were serious. I've spent a lot of time in the Glades, and I don't ever recall them being this thick in April. Ought to keep the fair weather crowd away and make a for a great summer of fishing
. We took a few pictures and videos. The tarpon pics are screen grabs from the videos, so they aren't the best quality.
