tarpon fishing

Fishing has been great the past few weeks. There are still some snook sneaking around the passes and adjacent bays, redfish have been prevalent the past two months and pompano, trout, snapper are fishing well plus a few tarpon will be cruising the flats the next few weeks.

Snook fishing has been good, the linesiders are fairly prevalent and we’ve been catching quite a few smaller fish in the 12-20″ range which is good to see and indicates a healthy fishery.

In the last month or so the red fishing has been great. These smaller “rat” reds seem to have appeared out of nowhere which sometimes happens in the fall. This is a good indication that we have a thriving healthy backcountry environment. We’ve probably caught close to 30 in the last couple days and they seem to be on many shorelines. Shrimp, live pilchards and jigs have all been working.

Although I haven’t been pompano fishing too much of late we have caught some nice fish on the outgoing tides in the passes and troughs. As the cooler weather approaches and we use less live bait we’ll be jigging more and catching more pomps and trout.

Snapper seem to be everywhere although they’re not as big as a couple months ago, we’re still catching some keepers, my favorite eating fish.

Although it’s not peak time for tarpon the upcoming fall cold fronts will push them into the passes on the strong full and new moon tides.

Now’s a good time to book for the holidays and I usually get booked up.

Some recent catches

February has been unseasonable warm with zero cold fronts and the forecast is for the warm weather to continue for the rest of the month. The water in the backcountry is in the high 70’s so consequently tarpon and sharks have shown up. The tarpon fishing is not as good as it will be in March and April but it’s nice having the options.

Fished long time client Ransom and his son Pratt yesterday, we fished around the backcountry catching a couple snook and a bunch of jacks as we waited for the tide to come in and bring the nice clear gulf water into some of the backcountry bays. We managed to hook and fight a scrappy 5′ black tip shark which was the highlight of the morning.

As we move into March the snook fishing will improve as the backcountry snook start to migrate to the passes and adjacent bays. The tarpon and shark fishing will also improve until peak tarpon time in May and June. I do get booked that time of year so if you want to tarpon fish better book soon.

Overall, in lieu of the warm weather the fishing is pretty much like winter fish. A few nice fish, a shark or tarpon thrown in and good action.

A few pictures of some catches.