Tarpon bit well this week!
Capt. Jim Hobales
March 6, 2014
Flamingo - Saltwater Fishing Report
This past week has been full of Tarpon, Giant Tarpon!
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I posted some pictures on Face book of some Tarpon my customers caught on Tues. I received a message from friend and outdoor writer Jan Maizler, he asked if I would take him out so he could do an article. We set it up for Friday morning and got out real early before daylight. We trolling motored around and were casting Rapala's, we had numerous strike by Trout, Mackerel and Ladyfish. We landed a few nice Trout and then I had a monster blow up, it was a 26 inch Trout. Jan being the great photographer took a bunch of pictures and then we released the big spawning female. We had a cold front moving thru and the Tarpon were biting, we had a couple really great bites before Jan hooked a solid 100 lb. This fish had a really big head on it but Jan put the heat to it and got it boat side in 20 minutes or so. We were getting ready to snap some photos and the hook flew out, that was just fine we got some pic's while in the air. The winds started to blow out of the NW really hard and bite was over but it was quite a morning.
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I couldn't wait to get back to those fish, I was off on Monday and got out early. I had perfect conditions but I wasn't seeing and fish! I started to cast my Rapala and had a big smashing hit the fish pulled pretty good. The fish stayed down but kept up the suspense, eventually it came to the surface and it was a 23 in Trout. It was a great bite I caught about a dozen Trout, 5 of them were between 3 and 5 lbs. I sat and waited for Tarpon. I had a really big Tarpon roll 40 feet in front of me, I cast and it was a solid hook up. This monster took off and ran close to 200 yards, I was down to 10 wraps on the reel. This giant Tarpon jumped 7 times in the next minute, I had to get some line back and chased it down. It took about 25- 30 minutes to get her along side of the boat for a couple pictures. This fish was every bit of 140 lbs. It was 930 and I had enough and headed home.
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My son has wanted a big Tarpon for a while now and this past week I kept sending him pictures of these incredible fish. Today is the day, we started out like the other days catching Trout , Cuda's and Jack's. He only like to fish top water so he tied on his favorite Rapala. I told him that's not what they have been eating! It was about 5 minutes later and he was hooked up to a 100 lb. plus beast. He was holding on but his reel was getting empty. We motored after it and put some line back on the reel and watched the Tarpon do what tarpon do. I think we battled it for 35 minutes and had it next to the boat, we saw the lure right in the top lip. It was his biggest Tarpon, he has had Tarpon fever for a while and finally got the big one! We were done and headed in and I said let's go cast near that see wall, he did and hooked a nice Snook that was being followed by a bigger one. Today was a great day for him getting a Bay Slam!
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