On our first trip we were able to catch three tarpon, one each and one we shared. All three were about 100-110 pounds each, which is a load on a 20-pound spinning rig.

This is Steve's tarpon near the boat trying desperately to get rid of that hook.

Magnificent!

How We Fished For Tarpon

We were amazed to learn that we would be fishing only 100 to 400 yards off the beach, actually sighting the running schools of tarpon. You can see the fish running as far away as two hundred yards, as they splash the water when they roll over the surface while they swim. Actually, Doug could see them that far, Steve and I did good to see them 100 yards. We often wondered if he was just pulling our leg, but often enough he could run right to fish we couldn't see.

The process was, sight the fish, run the boat ahead of them, stop, adjust with trolling motor, ready the spinning rods, complete with a small blue crab for bait, toss it into or ahead of the running school and wait until we were sure the school was past. We did a lot of this and neither Steve or I got one fish. Thankfully, Doug hung three, each time giving the rods to us so we could fight the fish and pull them in. As you can see here in a couple of pictures, these fish are back-breakers. You spend quite a bit of time challenging the tarpon to a "let's see who wears out first" contest. Both Steve and I got one in, but the last thing either of us wanted to do bring in another because this is hard work.

Steve holding on.

Me holding on.

This year two more business friends joined us. In our group picture from left to right, there's Bob, Steve, Larry and me.

Bob holding on with Larry on the left looking envious.

Bob caught the only tarpon this year. This is his 90 pound fish just after he was gaffed.

Bob's guide likes to measure the fish he boats. It was quite funny watching them lean over the side of the boat trying to tape measure him. Thankfully, they got it done fairly quickly and the fish was released alive.

Since the tarpon weren't running on the second day, we decided to try our hand at snook fishing. I was lucky enough to catch this one. We fished for these by moving along the beach, throwing a small jig toward the snook shadows we could see darting around ahead of the boat.

While moving along the shore we were surprised to see hundreds and hundreds of small sting rays coming at us along the shore swimming tip to tip, looking like autumn leaves swimming slowly past us. There were so many it took over a minute for them to swim past. Each were the same size at about twelve inches tip to tip.