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+--- Thread: The Hunt For Tarpon (/showthread.php?tid=91675)
The Hunt For Tarpon - KnotNancy - 01-08-2004
Happy New Year everyone!! This is the time of year when I become very nocturnal in my hunt for tarpon. For the past three nights, it has been just that, a hunt. Tarpon have become scarce in the normal winter time locations where they hang out. Lets break it down evening by evening.
Sunday evening (1/4/04) presented us with E/ESE wind @ 14-18.5 mph. When we arrived at Government Cut, we watched numerous tarpon rolling on the surface as well as marking them on the recorder on every drift. The bad news was
they had lockjaw. If that wasn't bad enough, it got worse when the tide changed. They totally disappeared from the entire area. Checking several Bay spots produced the same results. The evening ended with no hits, no runs, and no errors.
Monday evening (1/5/04) the wind died down to E/SE @ 6-11.5 mph. Perfect wind conditions to fish the Haulover Inlet area. Several changes became very obvious. First, the 3 swim markers at the south end of the area have been moved from a 14' depth in the 5'. Second, the run off from the beach restoration that took place during the summer changed the depth of all the swim markers from about 10' to 6'. If the sea conditions are rough, it is
now necessary to wind in the baits well outside of the markers as the waves curl and crash much sooner. With the light wind, the conditions were perfect for drifting the entire tarpon hole area. With the 8# outfits out, we were hoping for a moderate size tarpon. On the third drift, we hooked, landed, and released a very large ladyfish (commonly referred to as a poor man's tarpon) of 3 1/2 pounds. Moving to the Inlet itself, we made several
drifts and marked fish on the first drift. Once again we had no takers. This was beginning to look like a repeat of last night. We moved back down the beach and set up a drift south of 96th Street. Finally, the 8# outfit
doubled over with the right one. The hook up was good, the 35# fish was a perfect size for the tackle, and the fight was on. After releasing the fish, my angler and I breathed a sigh of relief as we set up a final drift for the evening.
Tuesday evening (1/6/04) it was back down to Government Cut. With an approaching cold front, the anticipation was high that the tarpon would turn on the feed bag. How wrong we would be. The NE/ENE 7-10 mph wind gave us
another calm night with slow but steady drifts. Five boats were spread out over the entire north side area. A perfect size bluerunner for swordfish ate one of our shrimp. We marked tarpon and watched them roll, but once
again they had lockjaw. We checked the south side and main channel and found none. The only thing left to do was run back to Haulover and give it a try there. The second drift had us watching an area to our south were we
thought we were seeing fish roll. I glanced back at our rods just in time to see the left one do the severe bend as a tarpon hit. The 50# tarpon was a perfect ending to another otherwise frustrating evening of tarpon fishing.
The slow down can't last forever. The cold fronts that will be coming through our area could get the bait up and moving and that will improve tarpon fishing dramatically. I'll keep you posted.
Captain Dave Kostyo
Knot Nancy Fishing Charters
305 620-5896 Charter
305 965-9454 Boat
305 732-2628 Beeper
www.knotnancy.com
nkostyo@bellsouth.net
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