Florida fishing guides, fishing reports, saltwater boat ramp maps: Tampa Bay Tarpon

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Tampa Bay Tarpon

May 8th, 2008

Finding Silver in the Shade

I've got some upcoming tarpon fishing charters in St. Petersburg and I've been so busy catching redfish, snook and trout in Tarpon Springs that I haven't had a chance to try for tarpon yet. So, yesterday I had a rare day off and I called my good friend Jody to see if he wanted to go tarpon fishing. He said he was game.

I haven't been tarpon fishing since last year and I needed a good day or two under my belt before I was going to be running tarpon charters. So Jody and I met at Maximo park and headed out to catch bait. It wasn't long before we saw birds working the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and we pulled over to take a look. There was bait everywhere and it was just the type of bait we were looking for. The pelicans were gorging themselves on large threadfin herring. Jody grabbed the net and said that he'd make the first throw. That 1st throw would be all we needed as he hauled in 25lbs of bait. So after a total of five minutes of bait hunting we were headed off to chase after bigger game. Tampa Bay's very own precious "silver". Tarpon.

We set up on the South side of the main span of the Skyway on the last of the incoming tide but we weren't seeing any tarpon rolling. We kept ourselves busy catching grouper and mangrove snapper and we decided to headed to the North end of the main span for the tide change.

When we set up shop on the North end of the bridge the tide began to turn. It looked like a the water came to life. I've never seen so much bait flipping on the surface in my life and we both noticed that it was staying in the shadow of the bridge. Shortly after the bait showed up we saw the first tarpon crash the surface eating the bait. 10 second after that my drag started to scream. Tarpon on! All heck broke loose as Jody tried to throw off the anchor and start the motor. All the while 200 yards of line was leaving my reel at a break neck pace. We finally freed ourselves of the anchor and the chase was on. Luckily the beast headed towards Tampa and left the sharp barnacles of the bridge behind. After a 15 minute fight the fish was brought boat side and and the first tarpon of the year was photographed on my boat.

We managed a few more hookups but these fish were smarter and ran us off on pilings. We followed the fish by staying in the shadow of the bridge. That's where the bait stayed and with it the tarpon. It wasn't a banner tarpon day but they are there and it was great to break the seal on another tarpon season.