Tarpon Fishing
Miami and South Florida Fishing Charters
A brief Report of South Floridas Great Tarpon Season underway
April 12 2011
By Capt. Jim Hale
www.floridasportfishingcharters.com
786-255-1788
If you are staying in Miami and want to Tarpon fish this is a great time for it.
When it comes to Tarpon fishing March ended with a bang and April has been red hot! Every trip has produced fish, either jumping or boating Tarpon from 30 to 120 pounds with a couple of fish around 140 being hooked up.
Here we are on a beautiful flat at Flamingo on the last part of an outgoing tide with crystal clear water, The angler on the casting platform armed with a 12 weight rod and a cream colored barred rabbit strip and chartreuse maribu collar.
To the left at 40 feet comes a Tarpon estimated at90 pounds.... The Tarpon egdes in slowly toward us at a 11 oclock angle a perfect shot. I say softy to the angler take the shot take it now! The first throw is a little off to the right,I instruct him to pull the fly out of the water slowly and re-cast a littleto the left. This time a perfect throw a foot off the nose and to the right of the Tarpon. Strip strip....quick small strips... as he does the Tarpon breaks right slowly tracks the fly and in one motion eats and turns left! Hit him! We really had no choice as the fish is already in the air!! 35 minutes later we release him boatside.
This is the way it has been here in South Florida, and I ecpect it to get better!
Night time fishing close to Miami on a out going tide has been great
on live bait or on fly. White clouser patterns have been the ticket on fly and live large shrimp drifted around the lights of Miamis' bridges has been working well.
I have not been fishing the Tarpon migrating ocean side yet because all the fish at Flamingo in Everglades National Park are eating so well.
On the gulf there are so many Tarpon free jumping and laid up on the surface I do dont want to leave a good bite!
Some days we are jumping 10 fish over 100 pounds on lures and using live ladyfish as bait the same time as using lures to cast.
For fly fishermen this place has been a real treat, not like the ocean going Tarpon that at times can be difficult to feed, the Tarpon at Flamingo are sitting just under the surface waiting to ambush bait, almost every fish we find will eat a fly if placed correctly.
All the Tarpon that we are finding so far this year are very tide dependent and are eating best on certain stages of the out going tide.
Most days Tarpon fishing at Flamingo has started early but the last two days the best bite was around noon on that last part of the falling tide where we are finding a push of fish moving slow and eating well.
We are also finding big numbers of smaller Redfish at Flamingo with a couple of double digit fish mixed in.
One trip This week included a 100 pound Tarpon on fly and 3 Redfish of 10 pounds or more on fly. Sunday we caught a 11 pound Triple tail on fly a 30 pound Tarpon on fly and lost 2 more Tarpon on fly with 3 more bites in a 4 hour period.
Good luck!
Capt. Jim Hale
www.floridasportfishingcharters.com
786-255-1788