Flamingo has turned red hot for tarpon in the last week. On Monday we jumped six fish in three hours from 50 up to almost 100 lbs at one spot on bait and lures. The best part is that there's almost no mosquitoes (wonder if last fall's hurricanes caused this?) and not another boat in sight every day....
Each day we're also catching and releasing snook, redfish, trout, mackeral, and lots of sharks, some as big as nine feet long. At one spot a small redfish on a jig was almost eaten by a goliath grouper that followed him up to the boat... everything's hungry now! Bait is still on the scarce side with the exception of schools of mullet being blown up by hungry jacks. We're spotting schools of hungry jacks along the shoreline as much as a quarter of a mile away. They're all in the five to ten pound range and are just terrorizing the mullet population. They've attacked everything we've thrown at them from topwater lures on down. One blitz almost destroyed a brand new topwater plug. When the action slowed I noted that it had three cracks in it and no longer floated very well....
Although most of the better action has been along the coast, Whitewater Bay is turning on as well. We found snook at every one of the few spots we checked... Although we only tossed small bucktails at them, it's the time of year for soft plastics all day long and topwater in the morning. When the schools of finger mullet show up in a few weeks Whitewater will really get going in a big way. It would be tough to ignore the tarpon, though.
This is the beginning of the great second season for tarpon of every size in the 'Glades with most of the action centered along the coast and around river mouths (and sometimes quite a way back up those same rivers...). They've done with spawning for the year and are now feeding every day to prepare for the change in seasons. Tarpon fishing will get better and better from now until the first cold day in October just around World Series time... Any places that are holding tarpon now will have them all day long. The key we're using is to spot when they begin moving around a bit. When that happens they're ready to eat anything they encounter. When the fish quit rolling and moving you may get a bite or two but it's best when they're on the prowl. Tarpon heaven.
Tight lines Bob LeMay