Fort Myers Fishing Report - Winter Tarpon Action
Capt. Eric Anderson
January 29, 2015
Fort Myers - Saltwater Fishing Report
Yesterday my clients were planning to spend the day fly fishing for trout the flats. The wind, muddy water, and falling water temperatures changed that plan. As I've mentioned before there is a good population of resident Tarpon in the Fort Myers area and they can be caught year 'round.
Anyone that has spent any amount of time trying to catch our resident tarpon will tell you that they can be the most selective feeders I have ever seen. Unless you can match the exact bait the tarpon are feeding on its no sale, they won't give it a second look.
Over the years I've tied up dozens of flies to match just about every bait fish the Tarpon were feeding on. Even when you're using a fly that looks close to perfect it often takes 3 or 4 changes to find the perfect fly for that day.
Yesterday that was only half the battle, with a surface water temp of 63 the Tarpon and the bait were very sluggish. The bait was just hanging in place trying to soak up as much warmth as possible from the sun. The Tarpon would come straight up from the bottom and hit the nearly motionless bait. In order to get a tarpon interested in hitting a fly it had to be suspended or slowly sinking. Even with a mono leader any fly is going to sink from the weight of the hook alone, and I have never tried to tie a suspending fly before, but after yesterday one is now on my to tie list.
Despite the fact that Tarpon were busting and rolling around the boat for hours not a single fish would hit a fly. My clients cast diligently for 5 hours before finally calling it quits. They had a wonderful time just being able to see all those Tarpon, and trying to figure out how to make one hit became the challenge of the day.
Everyone has days fishing when you do everything right and you still get skunked. If it was easy to catch a ton of fish on every trip our great sport of fishing would loose that challenge to prevail that keeps us coming back for more. We would all have to take up golf, and they say that its a sport that can be taught but you can't be learned. It sounds a lot like fly fishing for Tarpon on a cold January day.
Capt Eric Anderson
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